m 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
RIVERSIDE 


AMERICA  IN  THE  WAR 

I 
WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 


Copyright  by  Sun  Printing  and  Publishing  Association. 
From  Underwood  &  Underwood. 

President  Woodrow  Wilson. 


AMERICA   IN   THE  WAR 


BY 

CHRISTIAN  GAUSS 

AUTBOB  OF  "  THE  GEBUAN  EMFEBOR  AS  SHOWN  BY  HIS  PUBLIC  CTTEBAWCfB* 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

1919 


COPTHIGHT,  1918,  1919,  Er 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'3  SONS 


PREFACE 

I  CANNOT  pretend  that  the  following  account 
is  dispassionate,  and  I  realize  that  in  preparing 
it  I  have  done  what  Burke  said  he  did  not  know 
how  to  do.  ,  \  have  drawn  up  an  indictment 
against  a  whole  people  for  then:  complicity 
in  the  crimes  of  the  rulers  whom  they  have 
accepted.  As  an  American  of  South  German 
blood,  I  confess  readily  to  an  inherited  dislike 
and  distrust  of  the  Prussian.  I  have  tried, 
nevertheless,  to  represent  him  in  his  habit  as 
he  lives,  and  to  draw  out  fully  the  implications 
in  his  attitude  and  philosophy.  My  ancestors 
and  the  Prussian  were  poor  neighbors,  and  the 
traditional  bitterness  of  that  quarrel  may  have 
obtruded  itself.  In  the  interest  of  making  my 
contentions  clear  to  others  not  so  unhappily 
familiar  with  him,  I  may  unconsciously  have 
overstated. 

For  this  reason,  in  dealing  with  the  imme- 
diate causes  of  the  war,  in  my  desire  to  be  fair 
I  have  treated  the  evidence  the  more  scrupu- 


vi  PREFACE 

lously.  The  documents  quoted,  which  consti- 
tute the  most  serious  indictments  of  Germany, 
are  therefore  drawn  wherever  possible,  and 
almost  entirely,  from  German  sources.  The 
remainder  of  the  volume  dealing  with  our  in- 
ternational relations  is  based  upon  official  com- 
munications and  the  results  of  government 
investigations. 

Though  I  have  presented  some  material  re- 
cently discovered,  and  some  old  material  in  a 
new  light,  much,  if  not  all,  of  the  evidence  has 
already  been  sifted  by  abler  hands.  I  wish, 
therefore,  to  acknowledge  my  indebtedness  to 
those  upon  whose  work  I  have  drawn  most 
freely,  especially  to  the  Department  of  Civic 
and  Educational  Co-operation  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Public  Information,  the  value  of 
whose  important  monographs  is  not  yet  suf- 
ficiently recognized. 

In  preparing  Chapter  I,  I  have  frequently 
fallen  back  upon  Conquest  and  Kultur,  by 
Professors  Notestein  and  Stoll.  In  Chapter  V 
it  has  been  impossible  to  add  anything  of 
importance  to  "German  War  Practices,"  by 
Professor  Munro,  and  in  Chapter  VIII  I  have 


PREFACE  vii 

used  the  materials  offered  in  the  digest  of  "Ger- 
man Plots  and  Intrigues,"  by  Professors  Sperry 
and  West.  Professor  Harding's  "Outline  His- 
tory of  the  War,"  Mr.  AltschuPs  "German 
Militarism,"  and  the  War  Cyclopaedia  have 
been  particularly  helpful.  I  have  used  also 
the  many  publications  of  the  American  Associa- 
tion for  International  Conciliation  and  am  espe- 
cially indebted  to  its  officers  for  permission  to 
use  their  excellent  text  of  Prince  Lichnowsky's 
"Memorandum"  in  proof. 

In  dealing  with  the  diplomatic  correspon- 
dence between  the  United  States  and  Germany, 
I  havr  quoted  the  documents  from  the  Special 
Supplements  to  the  American  Journal  of  Inter- 
national Law  of  July,  1915,  and  October,  1916, 
where  they  are  accessible  in  accurate  text  and 
ordered  form.  This  phase  of  the  subject  has 
been  so  authoritatively  covered  by  James  Scott 
Brown  in  his  "A  Survey  of  International  Rela- 
tions Between  the  United  States  and  Germany, 
1914-1917,"  that  no  later  student  can  cross  his 
path  without  being  guided  and  enlightened 
on  the  questions  of  in  « rnational  law  involved. 
Although  it  has  in  some  cases  been  impossible 


viii  PREFACE 

to  compare  translations  with  original  texts,  in 
no  case  has  any  document  been  cited  about 
whose  authenticity  or  general  accuracy  there 
can  be  any  legitimate  question.  The  important 
statements  in  Chapter  III  by  Prince  Lichnow- 
sky  and  Doctor  Miihlon  have  been  acknowl- 
edged by  their  writers.  The  incidental  sources 
of  information  are  so  varied  that  enumeration 
is  here  impossible,  and  some  of  the  more  im- 
portant will  be  referred  to  in  the  notes. 

I  could  have  done  justice  to  the  friendly  sug- 
gestions and  assistance  of  my  colleague,  Pro- 
fessor Dana  C.  Munro,  only  by  making  this 
volume  much  more  scholarly  and  adequate  to 
its  purpose.  His  aid  and  that  of  many  other 
friends  has  made  my  task  a  pleasure. 

PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION 

THE  demand  for  a  new  edition  of  this  volume 
after  the  conclusion  of  hostilities  made  possible 
a  complete  revision.  I  take  this  occasion  to 
thank  Professor  Henry  R.  Shipman,  of  the  His- 
tory Department  of  Princeton  University,  for 
valuable  criticisms  and  suggestions. 

CHRISTIAN  GAUSS. 


CONTENTS 

•BAPTEB  MBZ 

I.  FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS 1 

II.  THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR    ....  45 

in.  THE  OCCASION  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR  ...  65 

IV.  STRICT  NEUTRALITY 106 

V.  ALIENATION  OF  AMERICAN  SYMPATHIES  .    .  132 

VI.  THE  "LUSITANIA" 160 

VII.  THE  "SUSSEX"  AND  THE  SUBMARINES    .    .  192 

VIII.  GERMAN  INTRIGUE 208 

IX.  PEACE  PROPOSALS 247 

X.  THE  FINAL  CHALLENGE  . 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


President  Woodrow  Wilson Frontispiece 

FACING   PAGB 

British  soldiers  conducting  Belgian  refugees  to  a  place  of 

safety 142 

The  ruins  of  Louvain 158 

A  number  of  boats  with  Americans  on  board  were  tor- 
pedoed without  warning 198 


WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

CHAPTER  I 
FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS 

IT  is  a  mistake  to  believe  that  a  declaration  ef 
war  is  the  beginning  of  a  conflict.  It  merely 
marks  the  transference  of  that  conflict  from  the 
field  of  statesmanship  to  the  field  of  arms.  It 
is  the  last  gesture  of  diplomacy,  its  non  pos- 
sumus  in  the  face  of  an  impending  crisis.  Wars, 
recent  wars  especially,  are  the  final  expression 
of  seemingly  fundamental  and  irreconcilable 
antagonisms  between  nations  or  races,  and  the 
entire  world  was  called  to  arms  between  1914 
and  1918,  not  so  much  because  boundaries  were 
threatened  as  because  national  ideals  were  at 
stake.  When,  on  April  6,  1917,  Congress  called 
into  extraordinary  session  by  President  Wilson, 
declared  war  upon  Germany  it  meant  that  since 
American  principles  were  threatened  the  peo- 
ple of  the  United  States  could  do  no  less  than 
accept  the  repeated  challenges  and  meet  force 


*  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

with  force.  A  desire  for  peace  our  government 
had  shown  from  the  beginning.  Patience  and 
forbearance  had  marked  all  its  dealings  with  the 
rulers  of  Germany.  Rarely  in  history  had  the 
head  of  a  great  Power  reasoned  so  calmly,  so 
earnestly,  or  for  so  long  a  time  as  did  President 
Wilson  with  a  declared  and  impenitent  ag- 
gressor. He  had  even  been  willing  to  waive 
points  of  honor  which  had  caused  wars  in  the 
past — the  destruction  of  property,  the  destruc- 
tion of  life,  plots  of  ministers  and  military  at- 
taches against  the  sovereignty  of  the  United 
States.  Indeed,  a  goodly  number  of  American 
citizens  believed  that  he  had  been  too  patient, 
that  the  interests  as  well  as  the  dignity  of  the 
United  States  demanded  that  the  German  am- 
bassador should  have  been  dismissed  and  de- 
termined military  preparations  begun  before 
they  were.  Yet  in  the  numerous  exchanges  of 
notes  which  had  taken  place  between  Woodrow 
Wilson  and  Germany's  spokesman,  one  thing 
only  had  become  clear.  Germany  either  de- 
liberately would  not  or  could  not  understand 
the  meaning  of  the  key-words  employed  clearly 
and  eloquently  by  the  President.  Germany  did 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS  3 

not  comprehend  or  would  not  recognize  the  sig- 
nificance of  words  like  law,  right,  freedom,  jus- 
tice, humanity.  The  diplomatic  controversy  had 
not,  therefore,  been  able  to  clear  up  the  cardinal 
points  at  issue.  It  had  merely  set  them  into 
stronger  relief,  and  made  plain  that  in  princi- 
ples, in  ideals,  in  all  that  to  us  makes  life  worth 
living,  Germany  and  America  were  irreconcila- 
bly at  odds. 

Political  differences,  Aristotle  has  said,  spring 
from  small  occasions,  but  from  great  causes.  So 
it  was  here.  The  real  causes  and  the  real  issues 
of  the  war  are  not  to  be  sought  in  the  Balkans 
or  in  the  sinking  of  American  ships.  They  are 
to  be  sought  in  certain  fundamental  national 
antagonisms.  And  it  is  in  terms  of  these 
that  future  historians  will  explain  the  origins  of 
our  war  with  Germany.  Some  light  we  shall, 
in  the  present  chapter,  attempt  to  throw  on 
the  question  of  why  this  war,  which  we  did 
not  wish,  had  to  come  at  all.  In  later  chapters 
we  shall  deal  with  the  question  of  why  it  had 
to  come  in  1917. 

We  have  used  the  word  antagonisms  after 
careful  deliberation.  They  were  not  differences 


4  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

which  admitted  of  immediate  or  peaceful  ad- 
justment. The  gulf  which  divided  the  United 
States  and  Prussia  was  too  deep  and  too  wide  to 
be  easily  bridged.  The  Prussian  detested  de- 
mocracy through  interest  and  principle;  to 
Prussia's  governing  class  the  idea  of  democracy 
by  which  and  in  which  we  live  as  a  people  had 
been  regarded  as  the  corrosive  poison  which  de- 
stroys great  states.  The  German  ideas  on  the 
mission  of  Germany,  on  the  constitution  and 
morality  of  states  and  on  the  place  and  function 
of  an  army  were  not  only  divergent  from  but 
absolutely  incompatible  with  ours.  Had  the 
Prussian  been  allowed  to  realize  the  dearest  pur- 
poses for  which  he  was  desperately  fighting,  and 
for  which  he  was  willing  to  sacrifice  himself, 
there  would  and  could  have  been  no  place  in  the 
world  for  another  nation,  equal  in  rights  and 
privileges  with  his  own.  Our  idea  is,  live  and 
let  live;  his  idea  was,  live  and  let  others  minister 
to  your  life  or  die.  His  conception  was  well  ex- 
pressed by  Doctor  Carl  Peters,  the  well-known 
German  traveller: 

"Not  to  live  and  let  live,  but  to  live  and 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS  5 

direct  the  lives  of  others,  that  is  power.  To 
bring  peoples  under  our  rational  influence  in 
order  to  put  their  affairs  on  a  better  footing, 
that  is  more  glorious  power." 

Students  who  had  followed  the  course  of  Ger- 
man history  since  the  founding  of  the  German 
Empire  (1871)  realized  that  there  was  this  di- 
vergence of  ideas,  but  most  of  them  concluded 
that  it  was  largely  a  matter  of  conflicting  opin- 
ion. It  did  not  occur  to  them  that  it  would  ever 
be  translated  into  terms  of  war.  It  is  necessary, 
therefore,  for  a  proper  understanding  of  why  we 
went  to  war  to  impress  upon  ourselves  the  seri- 
ousness of  the  situation  which  had  arisen  in  1914. 
Let  us  put  it  clearly  before  us  without  bias  or 
prepossession.  Here  is  a  story  of  something 
which  actually  happened.  In  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury, on  August  3,  1914,  before  the  representa- 
tives of  nearly  70,000,000  people  of  every  class, 
the  speaker  arose  and  announced: 

:< To-day  our  armies,  your  brothers  and  sons, 
have  been  sent,  not  by  your  mandate,  but  by 
your  master's  order,  into  a  neighboring  unarmed 
land.  It  is  an  invasion  by  force;  they  will  go 
with  cavalry  and  cannon  to  live  in  that  land,  to 


6  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

take  possession  of  telegraph  and  trains.  It  is  a 
country  with  which  we  are  at  peace,  against 
which  we  have  no  grievance.  It  has  never 
wronged  us.  We  are  even  bound  by  treaty  not 
to  do  this,  and  your  minister  of  foreign  affairs 
and  your  minister  of  war  promised  you  last  year 
that  this  would  not  be  done.  We  have  given  our 
word  as  a  nation.  I  know  that  what  we  are 
doing  is  contrary  to  international  law.  ..." 

But,  you  say,  at  this  point  delegates,  outraged 
and  excited,  rose  on  the  right,  in  the  centre,  on 
the  left,  and  interrupted,  shouting:  "But — but— 
this  is  unheard  of — this  spells  national  disgrace; 
this  is  betrayal  of  trust,  dishonor." 

No,  neither  on  the  left  nor  in  the  centre  nor 
on  the  right.  No  one  rose,  no  one  interrupted. 
They  did  not  even  shuffle  their  feet.  The 
speaker  concluded:  "Necessity  knows  no  law." 
They  listened,  thought  it  over,  were  proud  and 
pleased.  They  applauded. 

The  listeners  were  the  chosen  representa- 
tives of  all  Germany.  The  speaker  was  Chan- 
cellor von  Bethmann-Hollweg,  a  German  semi- 
liberal,  by  your  leave,  as  liberal  certainly  as 
were  his  successors  Michaelis  and  Hertling,  and 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS  7 

the  occasion  was  a  solemn  session  of  the  Ger- 
man Reichstag.* 

Just  as  Von  Bethmann-Hollweg  represented 
the  attitude  of  the  rulers  of  Germany,  so  the 
audience  which  approved  and  applauded  rep- 
resented that  of  the  German  people.  Those 
who  tried  to  believe,  therefore,  that  there  was  a 
difference  between  the  German  people  and  their 
rulers  and  that  any  serious  friction  would  arise 
between  them  so  long  as  they  were  undefeated 
were  indulging  a  vain  hope.  There  was  no 
great  difference  between  the  German  people  and 
their  rulers.  The  important  difference  was  be- 
tween the  German  peoplef  and  ourselves. 

We  in  America  were  unwilling  to  recognize 
the  seriousness  of  this  situation  for  two  reasons: 
in  the  first  place  we  were  familiar  in  this  coun- 
try with  a  type  of  German  often  represented 
among  our  immigrants,  whom  we  recognized  as 

*  In  the  above  passage  I  have  not  quoted  or  even  paraphrased  Von 
Bethmann-Hollweg's  speech.  I  have  tried  to  bring  out  its  implications 
as  they  were  known  to  the  body  he  was  addressing. 

f  Virtually  all  classes  of  the  German  people  acquiesced  in  and  jus- 
tified the  action  of  the  government  in  invading  Belgium.  That  the 
government  attempted  to  misrepresent  the  situation  is  true,  but  it  is 
also  true  that  an  earnest  desire  for  truth  and  justice  could  have  made  it- 
self felt. 


8  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

a  good-natured,  thrifty,  and  loyal  citizen;  and  in 
the  second  place  we  felt  that  the  spirit  of  Ger- 
many was  truly  expressed  in  the  works  of  men 
like  Schiller  (1759-1805)  and  Goethe  (1749- 
1832),  the  best-known  German  poets,  who  rep- 
resented the  greatest  period  in  German  litera- 
ture. What,  we  asked,  has  become  of  the  good 
fellow  we  used  to  know,  the  docile,  blue-eyed, 
fair-haired  German  Michel,  who  loved  his  pipe 
and  his  bowl  and  his  fiddlers  three  ?  * 

It  must  be  understood  that  this  type  of  Ger- 
man had  never  represented  the  Prussian.  He 
was  usually  the  South  German,  and  furthermore 
he  exemplified  a  type  and  generation  which  was 
unfortunately  tending  to  disappear.  One  of  the 
characteristics  of  this  type  had  been  its  readi- 
ness to  accept  authority,  its  docility,  and  docile 
the  Germans  still  were;  that  is  why  they  had 
changed,  for  they  had  accepted  a  new  master 
who  boasted  that  he  had  power  of  life  and  death 
upon  them.f  Why  this  was  so  and  under  what 

*  Michel  is  the  traditional  representative  of  Germany,  as  Uncle  Sam 
is  of  the  United  States  and  John  Bull  of  England. 

|  See  Emperor  Wilhelm's  speech,  November  23,  1891 :  "  It  may  come 
to  pass  that  I  shall  command  you  to  shoot  your  own  relatives,  brothers, 
yes,  parents — which  God  forbid — but  even  then  you  must  follow  my 
command  without  a  murmur." 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS  9 

unhappy  compulsion  such  a  transformation  had 
taken  place  will  be  later  abundantly  evident.* 

Just  as  the  type  of  German  with  whom  we 
were  familiar  for  the  most  part  no  longer  rep- 
resented the  spirit  of  Germany  in  1914,  so,  too, 
the  best-known  German  poets  were  likewise 
spokesmen  of  an  age  and  temper  that  had  disap- 
peared. They  had  been  liberal  and  cosmo- 
politan. About  1800  Schiller  was  developing 
the  theory  of  the  Weliburger,  the  citizen  of  the 
world,  and  chose  as  the  subjects  of  his  great 
plays  Wilhelm  Tell,  the  Swiss  national  hero,  the 
Maid  of  Orleans,  the  French  national  heroine, 
and  Mary  Stuart,  a  Queen  of  Scotland.  They 
were  all  treated  with  rich  sympathy  and  under- 
standing. It  is  difficult  to  imagine  Hauptmann 

*  The  Germany  that  we  were  fighting  was  Prussianized  Germany,  and 
it  is  interesting  to  note  that  after  the  defeat  of  the  German  army  indica- 
tions of  this  divergence  between  South  Germans  and  Prussians  which 
had  always  existed  in  the  past  began  to  reappear.  The  most  striking 
instance  of  this  was  the  interview  given  out  by  Count  von  Hertling,  the 
Bavarian,  who  had  been  chosen  as  Imperial  German  Chancellor  to  suc- 
ceed Michaelis,  and  had  been  in  office  up  to  the  time  when  after  the 
defeat  of  the  German  armies  (October,  1918)  negotiations  for  an  ar- 
mistice were  begun  by  the  new  government  first  represented  by  Prince 
Max  of  Baden.  Von  Hertling  died  early  hi  January,  1919,  and  a  few 
days  before  his  death  he  is  said  to  have  given  out  an  interview  in  which 
the  following  striking  sentiments  appeared: 

"The  animosity  of  a  great  majority  of  the  Germans  toward  Prussia 
will  have  a  decisive  influence  on  the  future  configuration  of  Central 
Europe.  ...  At  Munich,  as  at  Stuttgart  and  Cologne,  there  is  re- 


10  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

or  Sudermann  doing  as  much.  Of  Jingo  pa- 
triotism Goethe,  the  large-minded,  spoke  dis- 
paragingly as  jene  alte  Romer  Tugend,  that  old- 
fashioned  Roman  virtue.  Lessing  said  it  was  a 
virtue  of  which  he  was  happy  to  say  he  had 
little.  Herder,  one  of  the  few  Prussian  men  of 
letters  of  any  rank,  ran  away  from  Prussian  mil- 
itarism in  order  to  breathe  the  more  liberal  air  of 
Catherine  the  Great's  Russia. 

The  difference  between  these  men  of  letters  and 
their  successors  becomes  plain  when  we  remem- 
ber that  none  of  them  had  believed  in  Kultur. 
The  idea  of  Kultur  would  have  been  as  antipa- 
thetic to  them  as  it  came  to  be  to  us  after  1914. 
Kultur  meant  a  culture  which  was  strictly  and 
exclusively  German  and  which  banned  all  ele- 
ments of  foreign  origin.  It  implied  that  there 
was  a  particular  virtue  in  everything  of  Ger- 
manic origin  and  invention.  It  was  culture  as 

sentment  against  Prussia  for  having  so  badly  steered  the  common  ship, 
and  let  it  be  understood  that  by  Prussia  not  the  country,  but  the  caste 
and  the  political  system,  is  meant.  If  the  present  ideas  follow  their 
course,  momentous  historical  events  soon  will  occur,  and  the  name  of 
Prussia  will  disappear  from  the  map  of  Europe." 

Similar  sentiments  were  expressed  by  the  Socialist  Kurt  Eisner,  head 
of  the  Provisional  Government  in  Bavaria  after  the  flight  of  the  King. 
The  plans  for  a  German  republic  drawn  up  in  Berlin  after  the  abdica- 
tion of  Wilhelm  II  involved  a  serious  reduction  of  Prussia's  importance 
in  the  German  confederacy. 


11 

interpreted  by  that  later  generation  which  be- 
lieved that  echt  deutsch  was  the  superlative  of  ex- 
cellent. The  conception  of  Goethe  and  Schiller 
had  been  quite  the  opposite.  It  involved  the 
idea  of  a  well-rounded  personality  and  thor- 
oughly human  development  in  the  widest  sense, 
and  for  this  reason  both  of  them  had  drawn 
widely  upon  the  best  ideas  and  ideals  of  other 
peoples  in  antiquity  as  well  as  in  modern  times. 
Indeed,  Goethe  was  far  more  like  a  Greek  of  the 
age  of  Pericles  than  a  Prussian  of  1914.  The 
German  had  changed  as  had  the  spirit  of  his 
literature.  The  good  old  German  Michel  had 
become  Prussianized,  had  donned  the  spiked 
helmet  and  learned  to  sing  Deutschland  iiber 
Alles  as  a  result  of  the  same  influences  which 
had  transformed  the  humane  conception  of  cul- 
ture into  the  narrow  idea  of  Kultur.  Germany 
had  become  Prussianized. 

This  important  transformation  had  taken 
place  almost  unnoticed  by  ourselves,  for  Amer- 
ica, and  indeed  modern  Europe,  lost  touch  with 
Germany  in  the  events  after  1864,  which  led  to 
the  formation  of  the  German  Empire,  and  from 
that  time  on  Germany  followed  a  line  of  develop- 


12  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

ment  toward  autocracy,  the  creation  of  a  great 
state  controlled  by  an  hereditary  ruler,  which 
was  the  direct  opposite  of  the  movement  which 
was  taking  place  among  the  other  nations  and 
ourselves.  While  all  other  European  countries 
were  advancing  along  democratic  lines  Germany 
was  going  back  in  spirit  to  what  Prussia  had 
been.  In  political  matters  she  was  the  hermit- 
crab  of  the  nineteenth  century.  While  other 
governments  were  reducing  themselves  to  a 
common  basis  of  liberal  constitutions  and  demo- 
cratic spirit  which  bade  fair  to  bring  in  a  new 
era  of  varied  but  none  the  less  equal  nations 
mingling  in  a  larger  cosmopolitanism,  the  Prus- 
sian sulked  in  his  tent  or  drilled  behind  the 
guard-house.  Let  us  consider  how  this  had 
come  about. 

In  the  earh'er  hah*  of  the  nineteenth  century 
the  Germans  had  sought  to  realize  in  politics 
two  principal  ambitions.  They  desired  national 
unity  and  they  desired  liberty.  The  liberal 
movement  had  resulted  in  the  Revolution  of 
1848,  which  unfortunately  failed  to  achieve  its 
purpose  and  incidentally  brought  as  exiles  to  our 
country  many  of  the  German  liberal  leaders,  like 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS  13 

Karl  Schurz.  These  liberal  leaders  had  seen  in 
the  power  of  the  German  autocrats,  her  many 
kings  and  princes  who  were  jealous  of  each 
other's  rights  and  prerogatives,  the  chief  ob- 
stacles both  to  national  unity  and  to  democratic 
government.  The  discredit  into  which  the 
liberals  fell  after  the  unsuccessful  Frankfort 
Parliament  (1848)  may  be  said  to  have  left 
Germany  at  the  mercy  of  Bismarck  and  Prussia, 
who  were  to  realize  for  her  that  other  German 
aspiration  toward  national  unity.  The  failure 
of  the  democratic  leaders  and  the  signal  triumphs 
of  Prussia  in  later  establishing  this  national 
unity,  coupled  with  an  unexampled  increase  in 
material  prosperity,  were  to  beget  a  type  of 
government  and  an  attitude  of  mind  with  which 
the  rest  of  the  world  was  unfamiliar.  Germany 
was  reverting  toward  monarchical  and  auto- 
cratic types  of  government  and  diverging  from 
the  modern  world. 

It  is  in  this  new  process  of  Prussianization 
that  the  antagonisms  between  Germany  and 
ourselves  began  to  develop,  for  they  had  their 
origins  in  the  Prussian  character  and  in  cer- 
tain theories  of  the  state  which  were  promul- 


14  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

gated  and  developed  about  a  century  ago  by 
theorists  like  Hegel  (1770-1831)  and  Fichte 
(1762-1814),  who  formulated  and  defended  the 
Prussian  state,  in  terms  which  we  shall  consider 
later. 

But  before  discussing  these  Prussian  ideals  in 
detail,  it  is  well  to  recall  the  events  which  led  to 
the  unification  of  Germany.  The  liberal  move- 
ment had  failed.  Bismarck  and  his  less  capable 
master  Wilhelm  I  (then  King  of  Prussia)  were 
waiting  their  opportunity  to  establish  Prussian 
supremacy  and  make  their  state  the  centre  of 
the  new  united  Germany,  which  they  felt  must 
inevitably  come.  This  they  did  by  a  series  of 
three  wars.  In  1864  they  took  Schleswig-Hol- 
stein  from  Danish  control  in  a  war  in  which 
Austria  was  their  ally.  Austria  had  been  Prus- 
sia's great  rival  for  German  leadership.  Two 
years  later,  in  1866,  as  Bismarck  planned,  hoped, 
and  expected,  difficulty  arose  between  Austria 
and  Prussia  over  the  government  of  the  terri- 
tory taken  from  Denmark.  He  provoked  a  war. 
The  moment  was  favorable,  and  after  a  cam- 
paign, which  lasted  but  a  few  weeks,  Austria  was 
defeated  and  Prussia's  position  as  head  of  the 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS  15 

German  states  securely  established.  The  in- 
demnity demanded  of  Austria  ($15,000,000)  was 
small  and  the  punishment  inflicted  upon  her, 
with  the  exception  of  her  loss  of  prestige  and 
position  in  German  affairs,  was  slight.  To  com- 
plete his  programme,  to  quiet  opposition  to 
Prussian  leadership  and  autocratic  methods  at 
home  among  the  remaining  liberals,  and  to  bind 
the  South  German  states  to  the  new  union,  he 
felt  that  a  war  with  France  was  necessary,  and 
provoked  one  in  1870  by  deliberately  misrep- 
resenting the  contents  of  a  telegram  received 
from  King  Wilhelm  of  Prussia.* 

Owing  to  Prussia's  superior  military  organiza- 
tion she  achieved  complete  victory  over  France 
with  relatively  slight  losses,  took  from  her  Al- 
sace-Lorraine and  an  indemnity  of  5,000,000,000 
francs.  In  addition  she  succeeded  in  establishing 
and  proclaiming  the  birth  of  the  German  Em- 
pire with  Prussia  at  its  head  in  1871. 

In  attempting  to  understand  the  subsequent 
aggressive  attitude  of  Germany,  we  must  not 

*  This  telegram,  the  famous  Ems  Despatch  was  an  account  by  the 
King  of  Prussia  of  his  interview  with  the  French  ambassador.  By 
manipulating  it  Bismarck  made  France  appear  as  an  insulted  aggressor 
and  fired  German  sentiment  against  her,  from  which  the  war  resulted. 


16  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

forget  the  effect  of  these  three  wars  which  she 
had  deliberately  provoked,  which  had  been  ex- 
traordinarily successful  and  had  laid  the  basis 
for  her  great  commercial  prosperity.  In  the 
first  place  it  gave  immense  prestige  to  her  army 
and  in  the  second  place  the  attitude  of  a  large 
part  of  the  German  population  had  come  more 
and  more  to  resemble  that  of  an  elated  people 
following  the  advance  of  a  victorious  army.  In 
this  respect  the  effect  of  the  Franco-Prussian 
War  was  disastrous.  It  did  not  unify  Germany  in 
the  same  way  that  the  Italian  wars  unified  Italy. 
Prussia  was  not  attempting,  as  the  world 
fondly  imagined,  to  bring  about  the  true  na- 
tionalization of  Germany.  She  wished  to  create 
and  did  create  a  greater  Prussia  and  gave  to  the 
new  state  instead  of  liberal  institutions  her 
mediaeval-minded  monarch  and  his  efficient  or- 
ganization and  militarism.  The  pliant  little 
states  of  Saxony,  Bavaria,  and  Wurttemberg, 
with  an  honorable  tradition  of  decent  living  and 
love  of  literature  and  art  which  Prussia  never 
had,  were  bound  to  her  victorious  chariot  wheels. 
They  hated  Prussia,  yet  they  became  her  vas- 
sals. She  gave  them  an  ideal  Germany  only  in 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS  17 

name.  They  lost  their  independence  because 
they  had  neither  the  means  nor  the  will  to  de- 
fend it.  And  they  lacked  the  will  since  they 
lacked  the  tradition  of  Anglo-Saxon  freedom 
and  were  used  to  vassalage.  Docility,  as  we 
have  seen,  was  inherent  in  their  temperament. 
Their  necks  were  calloused  to  the  feudal  yoke. 
They  wore  it  lightly,  to  be  sure,  for  their  sub- 
mission was  voluntary  and  not  servile.  It  was 
part  of  their  traditional  organization.  They  ac- 
cepted Prussia  as  their  suzerain. 

It  would  be  a  most  serious  error,  however,  to 
believe  that  this  Prussianized  German  state  was 
one  which  existed  solely  through  the  force  of  the 
ruler.  This  is  very  far  removed  from  the  truth. 
Prussia  had  realized  the  German  desire  for  na- 
tional unity.  She  had  succeeded  in  doing  what 
liberalism  had  failed  to  do,  and  with  the  con- 
tinued success  and  prosperity  of  the  new  Ger- 
man Empire  it  received  first  the  acquiescence 
and  gradually  the  enthusiastic  support  of  nearly 
all  elements  of  the  population.  Both  in  its  con- 
stitution and  outward  principles  it  came  to  ex- 
emplify the  ideals  of  the  great  majority  who 
later  stood  behind  the  Kaiser  and  his  party  in 


18  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

the  war  as  solidly  as  did  any  other  of  the  allied 
peoples  behind  their  government.  The  Ger- 
man state  was  not,  therefore,  an  amalgam  forced 
into  cohesion  and  unity  by  mere  pressure  from 
above.  It  was  the  most  recent  but  at  the  same 
time  the  most  powerful  of  all  the  great  single 
states.  This  the  world  was  to  learn  from  four 
years  of  bitter  experience.  It  withstood  many 
shocks,  shocks  which  would  have  wrecked  many 
a  stanch  commonwealth.  For  it  had  the  two 
requisites  of  a  stable  and  enduring  state,  which 
Sieyes  had  pointed  out  to  Napoleon.  "Power," 
he  said,  "must  come  from  above.  Confidence 
from  below."  And  the  German  state  had  not 
only  power  and  confidence  <ioming  from  above 
and  below,  but  the  two  were  so  subtly  interfused 
that  until  Germany  was  defeated  no  allied 
statesman  was  able  to  discover  a  serious  split 
or  any  marked  line  of  cleavage. 

Bismarck,  as  we  have  seen,  was  a  master  in 
political  craft  and  in  waiting  for  the  opportune 
moment  to  use  the  military  force  which  he  spent 
his  time  in  developing.  Appetite  had  now 
grown  by  what  it  had  fed  upon,  and  Bismarck- 
ism  was  more  powerful  in  Germany  than  ever. 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS  19 

He  had  set  the  standard  of  her  later  political 
morality.  His  successors  were  less  astute  but 
more  unscrupulous.  They  were  even  more 
grasping  and  more  eager,  for  they  had  discov- 
ered new  incentives.  Let  us  not  quote  Bern- 
hardi,  who  was  read  comparatively  little.  Let 
us  cite  a  leader  of  a  large  wing  of  German  public 
opinion,  Daniel  Frymann,  whose  book,  "If  I 
Were  the  Kaiser,"  went  through  twenty-one 
printings  in  the  three  years  from  1911  to  1914: 

"Since  Bismarck  retired  there  has  been  a 
complete  change  of  public  opinion.  It  is  no 
longer  proper  to  say:  'Germany  is  satisfied/ 
Our  historical  development  and  our  economic 
needs  show  that  we  are  once  more  hungry  for 
territory,  and  this  situation  compels  Germany 
to  follow  paths  unforeseen  by  Bismarck." 

Under  him  Prussia  had  made  herself  supreme 
and  Germany  had  achieved  unity.  She  now 
wanted  more.  She  was  hungry  for  territory. 
She  wanted  colonies,  and  not  only  colonies  in  the 
islands  of  the  seas  and  in  far  countries,  but  she 
wanted  to  expand  and,  to  put  it  bluntly,  to 
control  and  overrun  territories  in  Europe.  As 
usual,  to  justify  this  desire  she  developed  a 


20  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

theory,  that  of  Pan-Germanism,  which  meant  at 
first  that  she  had  the  right  and  the  duty  to 
annex  all  those  sections  of  Europe  in  which  the 
populations  had,  or  to  her  seemed  to  have,  traces 
of  Teutonic  blood.  She  was  young,  she  was 
growing.  She  needed  "a  place  in  the  sun."  * 

These  Pan-German  race  theorists,  like  Lud- 
wig  Woltmann  and  H.  S.  Chamberlain,  carried 
their  doctrine  to  such  absurd  lengths  that  they 
discovered  Teutonic  blood  in  nearly  all  the  out- 
standing figures  in  history  from  Alexander  the 
Great  and  Caesar  to  Napoleon.  Pamphleteers 
and  later  politicians  likewise  discovered  Teu- 
tonic blood  in  most  of  those  populations  whom 
it  was  desirable  to  annex,  and  in  the  wake  of  the 
theorists  advocated  an  ominous  plan  of  im- 
perialistic expansion.  Whither  these  paths  would 
lead  is  evident  from  the  following  extravagant 
programme  announced  by  Bronsart  von  Schel- 
lendorf: 

*  This  phrase  was  used  by  the  German  Emperor  in  speaking  of  the 
necessity  of  a  larger  navy  in  June,  1901.  It  meant  at  first  a  favorable 
economic  position  for  Germany  with  regard  to  foreign  commerce.  The 
Emperor  declared  that  Germany  had  achieved  this,  as  indeed  she  had. 
Later,  when  German  publicists,  especially  Pan-Germans,  insisted  that 
other  powers  were  pursuing  an  "  Einkreisungs  Politik,"  a  policy  of  en- 
circling or  hemming  in  Germany,  the  phrase  was  used  to  indicate  Ger- 
many's need  for  colonies  and  territory. 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS  21 

"Do  not  let  us  forget  the  civilizing  task  which 
the  decrees  of  Providence  have  assigned  to  us. 
Just  as  Prussia  was  destined  to  be  the  nucleus  of 
Germany,  so  the  regenerated  Germany  shall  be 
the  nucleus  of  a  future  empire  of  the  West. 
And  in  order  that  no  one  shall  be  left  in  doubt 
we  proclaim  from  henceforth  that  our  conti- 
nental nation  has  a  right  to  the  sea,  not  only  to 
the  North  Sea,  but  to  the  Mediterranean  and 
the  Atlantic.  Hence  we  intend  to  absorb  one 
after  another  all  the  provinces  which  neighbor 
on  Prussia.  We  will  successively  annex  Den- 
mark, Holland,  Belgium,  northern  Switzerland, 
then  Trieste  and  Venice,  finally  northern  France 
from  the  Sambre  to  the  Loire.  This  programme 
we  fearlessly  pronounce.  It  is  not  the  work  of 
a  madman.  The  empire  we  intend  to  found  will 
be  no  Utopia.  We  have  ready  to  hand  the 
means  of  founding  it,  and  no  coalition  in  the 
world  can  stop  us." 

It  is  plain  that  a  new  spirit  had  come  over 
Germany.  It  is  difficult  to  say  how  large  a  pro- 
portion of  her  population  held  views  of  which 
the  above  is  an  example.  They  were  at  least  an 
influential  faction,  and  the  effect  of  their  views, 
either  implicit  or  explicit,  will  be  found  in  vir- 
tually all  of  the  earlier  suggestions  for  "a  Ger- 
man peace"  gathered  by  the  Swiss,  Grumbach, 
in  his  interesting  compilation  on  German  an- 


22  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

nexations,  "Das  Annexionistische  Deutschland." 
To  comprehend  it  we  must  remember  that  we 
are  dealing  with  a  new  attitude  and  a  new  force, 
the  mere  expression  of  which  was  a  threat  and 
which  we  shall  find  voiced  by  representatives 
of  all  classes  of  the  population.  It  is  expressed 
in  the  following  terms  by  the  prophet  Nietzsche 
in  "Zarathustra": 

:<Ye  shall  love  peace  as  a  means  to  new  wars, 
and  the  short  peace  better  than  the  long.  I  do 
not  advise  you  to  work,  but  to  fight.  I  do  not 
advise  you  to  compromise  and  make  peace,  but 
to  conquer.  .  .  .  Let  your  labor  be  fighting 
and  your  peace  victory.  You  say  that  a  good 
cause  hallows  even  war.  I  tell  you  that  a  good 
war  hallows  every  cause." 

But  it  may  be  objected  that  Nietzsche  was  a 
philosopher,  a  rhapsodist  mumbling  in  his  dreams, 
that  what  he  said  was  only  suggestion  and  read 
exclusively  by  university  professors.  The  pa- 
rents and  children  of  Germany  did  not  sym- 
pathize with  such  doctrine.  Let  us  turn  the 
pages  of  the  Prussian  Book  of  Life  and  read  what 
was  written,  and,  so  far  as  we  know,  approved 
by  many  mothers  and  their  sons.  Jung  Deutsch- 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS  23 

land  was  the  official  organ  of  Young  Germany. 
It  announced  in  an  issue  of  October,  1913: 

"War  is  the  noblest  and  holiest  expres- 
sion of  human  activity.  For  us,  too,  the  glad, 
great  hour  of  battle  will  strike.  Still  and 
deep  in  the  German  heart  must  live  the  joy  of 
battle  and  the  longing  for  it.  Let  us  ridicule 
to  the  utmost  the  old  women  in  breeches  who 
fear  war  and  deplore  it  as  cruel  and  revolting. 
No;  war  is  beautiful.  Its  august  sublimity  ele- 
vates the  human  heart  beyond  the  earthly  and 
the  common.  In  the  cloud  palace  above  sit  the 
heroes,  Frederick  the  Great  and  Bliicher  and  all 
the|men  of  action — the  Great  Emperor,  Moltke, 
Roon,  Bismarck — are  there  as  well,  but  not  the 
old  women  who  would  take  away  our  joy  in  war. 
When  here  on  earth  a  battle  is  won  by  German 
arms  and  the  faithful  dead  ascend  to  heaven,  a 
Potsdam  lance-corporal  will  call  the  guard  to 
the  door  and  'Old  Fritz'  (Frederick  the  Great), 
springing  from  his  golden  throne,  will  give  the 
command  to  present  arms.  That  is  the  heaven 
of  Young  Germany."  * 

Such,  our  Committee  on  Public  Information 
informed  us,  were  the  doctrines  taught  to  young 
lads  of  about  the  age  of  our  Boy  Scouts. 

*  The  Pan-German  citations  in  this  chapter  whose  source  is  not  other- 
wise indicated  will  for  the  most  part  be  found  in  Conquest  and  Kultur, 
by  Professors  Notestein  and  Stoll.  (Committee  on  Public  Informa- 
tion.) 


24  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

Grasping  at  straws  in  the  flood  we  said  to 
ourselves,  but  in  the  Social  Democrats  there  is 
health  and  hope  for  a  future  of  peace.  With 
them  we  can  argue.  They  will  understand  us. 

This  hope,  however,  was  likewise  vain.  There 
was  no  common  denominator  for  our  American 
and  these  aggressive  German  ideals.  Maxi- 
milian Harden,  the  editor  of  Die  Zukunft,  may 
be  taken  to  have  represented  radical  German 
opinion  in  its  various  stages.  Yet  on  several  oc- 
casions he  showed  himself  no  less  eager  for  war 
than  members  of  the  ruling  class.  In  1911  when 
Germany,  after  appearing  to  desire  it,  did  not 
start  a  war  with  France  over  the  Morocco  dis- 
pute, he  was  sadly  disappointed  and  regretted 
that  the  German  Empire  "did  not  revive  the 
ancient  Prussian  policy  of  conquest."  He  did, 
to  be  sure,  protest  in  July,  1914,  against  the 
government's  policy,  but  in  December  of  that 
same  year  he  wrote  of  the  great  war  in  exulta- 
tion: 

"Cease  the  pitiful  attempts  to  excuse  Ger- 
many's action.  .  .  .  Not  as  weak-willed  blun- 
derers have  we  undertaken  the  fearful  risk  of 
this  war.  We  wanted  it.  Because  we  had  to 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS  25 

wish  it  and  could  wish  it.  May  the  Teuton 
devil  throttle  those  whiners  whose  pleas  for  ex- 
cuses make  us  ludicrous  in  these  hours  of  lofty 
experience.  We  do  not  stand,  and  shall  not 
place  ourselves,  before  the  court  of  Europe. 
Germany  strikes.  .  .  .  We  wage  it  (the  war) 
from  the  lofty  point  of  view  and  with  the  con- 
viction that  Germany,  as  a  result  of  her  achieve- 
ments and  in  proportion  to  them,  is  justified  in 
asking  and  must  obtain  wider  room  on  earth  for 
development  and  for  working  out  the  possibili- 
ties that  are  in  her." 

Liebknecht,*  too,  was  swept  off  his  feet,  and 
in  the  beginning  was  for  war,  as  he  himself  told 
Ambassador  Gerard.  Sword-rattling  in  Ger- 
many, therefore,  was  not  confined  to  the  here- 
tochs.  The  thousands  of  German  people  who 
read  "If  I  were  the  Kaiser"  thought  William  II 
was  doing  pretty  well,  only  that  he  was  too  hesi- 
tant, too  lacking  in  the  courage  of  German  convic- 
tion to  take  advantage  of  historic  opportunities. 

It  is  impossible  to  understand  the  war,  there- 

*  Karl  Liebknecht  (1871-1919)  was  one  of  the  most  prominent  mem- 
bers of  the  radical  Socialist  group  and,  after  the  abdication  of  Emperor 
William  II,  became  the  leader  of  the  Spartacus  group  of  revolutionists. 
He  advocated  international  Socialism  (the  brotherhood  of  all  wage- 
earners  of  the  world).  Shortly  after  the  war  began  he  turned  against 
the  government.  In  1916  he  was  sentenced  to  imprisonment  for  his 
anti-war  attitude.  He  was  killed  in  Berlin  (it  is  said  while  attempting 
to  escape  from  the  police  in  January,  1919).  He  may  be  taken  to  have 
represented  the  most  extreme  type  of  German  radical. 


26  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

fore,  if  we  assume  that  the  spirit  of  Germany 
was  like  the  spirit  of  America  or  that  the  con- 
duct of  the  Germans  in  the  war  was  due  entirely 
to  the  fact  that  they  were  deluded  by  their  rulers. 
If  that  had  been  the  case  the  conflict  could  have 
been  ended  very  simply  and  quickly.  It  would 
merely  have  been  necessary  for  the  allied  aero- 
planes to  deluge  the  German  trenches  and  back 
lines  with  copies  of  Woodrow  Wilson's  speeches. 
One  copy  in  the  hands  of  each  German  soldier 
would  have  ended  the  battles.  When  their  of- 
ficers were  out  of  sight  and  hearing,  and  they 
often  were,  the  privates  would  have  held  hurried 
whispered  conferences.  They  would  have  waited 
until  nightfall,  have  silently  slunk  over  the  top 
in  platoons,  have  crossed  through  the  hush  of 
No  Man's  Land,  and  with  a  shout  and  sense  of 
pride  and  relief  have  thrown  themselves  into 
the  arms  of  their  deliverers,  the  French,  Eng- 
lish, and  American  troops,  who  were  in  very 
truth  fighting  for  liberty  and  justice.  Why  did 
they  not  do  this? 

In  the  first  place  Woodrow  Wilson's  speeches 
were  printed  in  Germany,  garbled  at  times,  to  be 
sure,  but  often  in  toto  and  without  change,  and 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS  27 

the  German  Chancellor  von  Hertling,  before  the 
Reichstag  and  the  country,  answered  the  speech 
of  January  8  and  discussed  in  detail  the  famous 
fourteen  articles,  on  which  peace  was  to  be 
based. 

The  great  mass  of  the  people  did  not  heed 
such  statements  for  they  were  animated  by  an 
entirely  different  ideal  and  were  listening  to 
what,  for  them,  was  a  higher  music.  The  rea- 
son for  their  indifference  may  be  summed  up  in 
a  single  phrase,  almost  as  common  in  Germany 
as  liberty  in  America.  That  phrase  is  Das 
Deutschtum. 

And  what  is  Das  Deutschtum?  It  is,  or  rather 
was,  the  mystic  conception  of  the  mission,  the 
power,  and  the  privileges  of  the  German  peo- 
ple, which  was  to  be  realized  by  the  German 
state.  It  was  a  national  delusion  which  had 
begotten  an  attitude  and  a  programme  which 
made  Germany  an  impossible  member  of  a  world 
federation.  The  importance  of  this  conception 
is  capital  and  must  be  insisted  upon  if  we  would 
understand  the  crisis  in  world  politics  in  1914 
and  the  years  following.  We  must  explain  to 


28  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

ourselves  a  whole  series  of  phenomena,  that 
at  first  sight  seem  inexplicable.  Why  was  it 
that  a  modern  European  people  could  have  de- 
veloped a  philosophy  like  that  expressed  by 
Nietzsche  and  other  representatives  of  all  classes 
which  we  have  already  considered  ?  How  could 
they  proclaim  with  such  zeal  and  determination 
ideals  like  those  of  Kultur  and  Pan-Germanism  ? 
How  could  their  spokesman  bring  himself  to 
make  a  speech  like  Von  Bethmann-Hollweg's 
and  find  a  representative  audience  that  would 
make  no  protest  ?  How  was  it  possible  that  they 
could  invade  Belgium,  leaving  such  a  wake  of 
horrors  and  shell  cathedrals  like  Rheims  ?  How 
could  they  sanction  a  greeting  like  Gott  strafe 
England,  sink  a  passenger  liner  like  the  Lusi- 
tania,  and  then  commemorate  this  fact  by  strik- 
ing a  medal?  It  is  evident  that  behind  all  this 
there  lay  certain  general  conceptions,  whose  im- 
portance we  did  not  realize.  These  general 
conceptions  can  all  be  summed  up  in  the  sig- 
nificant words  Das  Deutscktum*  And  in  dis- 

*  There  are,  of  course,  fanatical  patriots  in  all  countries.  It  is  per- 
fectly safe,  however,  for  the  historian  to  say  that  patriotism  could  not 
have  taken  these  same  forms  or  expressed  itself  in  these  same  ways  t* 
the  same  degree  in  America  or  France  or  England. 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS  29 

cussing  it  we  must  remember  that  in  history 
the  immediate  influence  and  power  of  a  con- 
ception does  not  depend  upon  its  truth  but  upon 
the  number  and  determination  of  those  who  hold 
it.  A  madman  with  a  delusion  is  more  dangerous 
than  a  professor  with  the  documents. 

We  had  not  understood  the  working  of  this 
spring  to  which  the  German  responded,  for  we 
have  not,  indeed,  none  of  the  Allies  have,  any- 
thing which  remotely  corresponds  to  it  in  our 
national  life.  There  is  no  parallel  conception, 
and,  therefore,  no  parallel  word  in  French  or 
Italian  or  English.  When,  for  instance,  we  use 
the  word  Americanism  we  think  of  the  prin- 
ciples by  which  we  live,  the  right  to  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  We  have  chosen 
them  as  the  foundation  of  our  life.  It  is  an  in- 
clusive conception,  any  man  may  share  in  these 
blessings  and  share  in  them  equally  with  our- 
selves, whether  he  and  his  forefathers  were 
Englishmen  or  Italians  or  Germans  or  Russians. 
Not  only  are  we  pleased  to  have  the  individual 
do  this,  but  we  are  gratified  when  we  find  other 
nations  like  our  allies  which  adopt  much  the 
same  policy  of  liberalism  and  democracy. 


30  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

Not  so  with  Deutschtum.  It  is  the  very  op- 
posite. It  is  exclusive,  intolerant;  it  is  virulent 
international  chauvinism.  Its  rights  and  privi- 
leges could  be  shared  only  by  those  who  were 
of  German  blood.  All  others  must  recognize 
these  rights.  It  was  not  something  of  their  own 
election  which  the  Germans  had  arbitrarily 
chosen  to  adopt.  It  was,  so  they  believed,  a 
mandate  from  on  high.  The  Almighty  had 
made  them,  so  some  of  their  leaders  told  them, 
the  strongest,  the  most  scientific,  the  most  cul- 
tured people  in  the  world.  The  earth  and  what 
it  contains  belonged,  or  should  belong,  to  them. 
They  as  the  greatest  and  most  just  of  peoples 
would  see  to  it  that  these  bounties  were  properly 
used  and  distributed.  For  this  reason  coal  and 
iron  deposits  in  France  and  Belgium  should  be 
administered  by  them.  No  one,  not  even  they 
themselves,  could  specify  all  the  innumerable 
petty  details  of  this  new  and  necessary  adjust- 
ment. They  were,  as  we  have  seen,  a  young  and 
growing  people.  As  they  grew  their  needs  would 
naturally  increase  also  and  there  was  really  no 
limit  to  what  they  might  need  and  deserve.  "In 
short,"  as  one  of  their  spokesmen  has  said,  "we 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS  31 

must  be  allowed  to  be  the  judges  of  what  we 
shall  take."  * 

All  this  seems  preposterous.  That  is  why  we 
had  not  recognized  it,  and  yet  we  shall  find  that 
these  ideas  were  expressed  by  men  of  the  high- 
est importance  in  the  German  Government  and 
by  leaders  in  her  intellectual  life.  The  Kaiser 
himself  had  said  in  a  speech  on  December  18, 
1901,  that  "To  us,  the  German  people,  great 
ideals  are  a  lasting  possession,  while  with  other 
peoples  they  have  been  more  or  less  lost.  It 
is  now  the  German  people  whose  special  prov- 
ince it  is  to  protect  these  great  ideas,  to  foster 
them,  to  set  them  forth." 

This  conception,  which  was  held  by  a  great 
mass  of  the  Kaiser's  people,  will  be  echoed  by 

*  There  is  in  Germany  as  in  all  other  lands  a  great  mass  of  the  popu- 
lation which  does  not  think,  which  has  few  ideas  on  domestic  policy  and 
none  on  foreign.  The  way  in  which  the  world  is  governed  is  to  them  a 
mystery.  They  know  only  that  men  must  obey  their  rulers,  and  in 
Germany  they  had  a  far  higher  respect  for  constituted  authority  than 
in  other  lands.  If  ignorance  is  innocence,  this  large  group  may  be  ab- 
solved of  the  guilt  of  the  war.  There  is  another  group  of  intelligent 
Germans  who  did  not  agree  with  the  conceptions  set  forth.  Numeri- 
cally this  group  was  probably  a  large  one,  but  it  proved  itself  to  have 
been  a  fairly  impotent  party  of  protest.  When  we  attribute  the  forego- 
ing and  following  ideas  to  Germany,  therefore,  these  exceptions  must  be 
made,  but  we  must  remember  that  these  ideas  were  held  consciously  by 
the  ruling  class  that  were  Germany,  and  were  accepted  by  the  obedient 
great  mass  of  the  unthinking.  They  provided  the  motivation  for  Ger- 
many's acts  of  aggression. 


32  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

men  like  Adolf  Lasson,  one  of  the  most  promi- 
nent and  learned  professors  of  philosophy  at  the 
University  of  Berlin: 

"One  cannot  rest  neutral  in  relationship  to 
Germany  and  the  German  people.  Either  one 
must  consider  Germany  as  the  most  perfect  po- 
litical creation  that  history  has  known  or  must 
approve  her  destruction,  her  extermination. 
A  man  who  is  not  a  German  knows  nothing  of 
Germany.  We  are  morally  and  intellectually 
superior  to  all,  without  peers.  It  is  the  same 
with  our  organizations  and  with  our  institu- 
tions." 

It  will  be  repeated  by  Ernst  Haeckel,  of  Jena, 
the  most  widely  known  of  German  biologists: 

"One  single  highly  cultivated  German  war- 
rior of  those  who  are,  alas,  falling  in  thousands 
represents  a  higher  intellectual  and  moral  life 
value  than  hundreds  of  the  raw  children  of  na- 
ture whom  England  and  France,  Russia  and 
Italy  oppose  to  them." 

The  church  turned  in  no  divergent  testimony. 
Doctor  Paul  Conrad,  pastor  of  the  Kaiser  Wil- 
helm  Memorial  Church  in  Berlin,  frankly  ad- 
mitted: "We  feel  ourselves  to  be  the  bearers  of 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS  33 

a  superior  Kultur"  and  he  was  sure  that  through 
the  victory  of  their  arms  the  Germans  would 
bring  about  a  new  efflorescence  of  humanity 
"through  the  German  nature,"  which  would 
prove  a  blessing  to  other  nations  as  well.  Such 
statements  could  have  been  gathered  by  thou- 
sands from  humbler  subjects  of  the  empire. 

This  conviction  of  superiority,  this  sense  of 
Germany's  special  mission  in  the  world,  was  the 
source  from  which  were  derived  her  fatal  no- 
tions of  the  supermorality  of  the  German  state, 
the  necessity  for  and  the  justification  of  mili- 
tarism. Any  state  which  interfered  with  the 
carrying  out  of  her  lofty  mission  in  reshaping 
the  world  was,  in  her  eyes,  guilty  of  aggression. 
That  is  why  in  German  opinion  the  war  was  re- 
garded as  a  defensive  war,  and  why  the  Kaiser 
was  allowed  to  declare  it  as  such  without  con- 
sulting the  Reichstag,  which  represented  the 
German  people,  or,  indeed,  even  the  Bundes- 
rath,  which  represented  the  states  and  free 
cities  of  the  empire.  That  is  also  why  the  Ger- 
mans entered  upon  it  with  very  general  enthusi- 
asm, and  carried  it  on  with  a  ruthlessness  that 
would  in  many  cases  have  shamed  the  Hun. 


34  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

This  conception  of  Deutscktum  was  funda- 
mental in  the  antagonism  between  Germany 
and  the  United  States  and  the  other  allied  na- 
tions. It  was  dangerous  because  it  implied  and 
justified  the  programme  of  Pan-Germanism, 
which  we  have  already  considered,  and  because 
it  had  developed  the  will  and  the  means  to  carry 
this  programme  into  execution.  With  regard  to 
the  means  at  its  disposal,  the  two  most  im- 
portant instruments  which  we  shall  consider 
were,  first,  its  conception  of  the  state  (autoc- 
racy), and,  secondly,  its  idea  of  the  function  and 
attitude  of  an  army  (militarism). 

Let  us  consider  first  this  autocratic  concep- 
tion of  the  state  and  contrast  it  with  our  own. 
Briefly  stated,  we  might  say  that  the  distinction 
between  the  two  conceptions  lies  in  the  fact 
that  we  Americans  believe  that  the  state  exists 
for  us,  that  it  is  to  do  our  will;  in  short,  we  are 
the  state  and,  as  Walt  Whitman  has  said,  it  is 
"you  and  me."  It  has  no  existence  outside  the 
citizens  who  compose  it,  and  from  us  it  receives 
its  power  and  its  life.  If  it  is  immoral  we  who 
are  it  are  immoral.  We  are  responsible  for  its 
actions,  and  we  therefore  desire  them  to  con- 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS  35 

form  to  a  standard  as  high  as  our  own.  The 
Prussian  conception  of  the  state  is  in  spirit  the 
direct  opposite  of  this.  In  its  present  form  it 
is  scarcely  more  than  a  century  old,  and 
was  a  development  of  the  philosophies  of 
Fichte  and  Hegel.  The  state  does  not  exist 
for  the  individual,  the  individual  exists  for 
the  state.  It  is  not  "you  and  me."  It  is 
something  far  greater,  higher,  and  more  power- 
ful than  all  its  citizens.  Stripped  of  all  its 
mysticism,  it  is  the  idea  of  the  superman 
carried  over  into  statecraft.  Without  it  the  in- 
dividual is  nothing  and  has  no  rights.  So,  for 
instance,  according  to  Hegel,  though  the  in- 
dividual can  demand  that  another  individual  in 
the  state  respect  him,  he  cannot  expect  the  state 
itself  to  respect  him  or  his  rights.  He  must  re- 
spect it,  for  it  does  not  exist  by  virtue  of  him 
and  his  fellows.  It  is  something  quite  indepen- 
dent of  and  above  him.  He  cannot,  therefore, 
pretend  to  rule  it,  but  must  allow  it  to  rule  him. 
The  idea  of  the  state,  Hegel  goes  on  to  say, 
"should  be  venerated  as  a  real  God  upon 
earth."  Furthermore,  it  is  not  something  pas- 
sive, static,  but  dynamic,  with  a  will  of  its  own. 


36  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAK 

The   ordinary    standards    of    morality  cannot, 
therefore,  be  applied  to  it.* 

The  doctrine  is  therefore  essentially  aggres- 
sive. This  irresponsible  state  was  controlled 
by  an  autocrat,  the  King  of  Prussia  and  Em- 
peror of  Germany,  who  was  not  elected  by  or 
responsible  to  the  people,  but  who  considered 
himself,  even  if  all  of  his  subjects  did  not,  di- 
vinely appointed  to  carry  out  the  mission  of 
Germany.  The  development  of  the  conception 
of  German  superiority  had  led  many  to  believe 
that  just  as  this  Prussian  state  became  supreme 
in  Germany,  so  Germany  should  become  in  the 
world.  There  was  room  for  nothing  above  it, 
for  it  could  not  allow  itself  to  be  fettered  or 
bound.  When  we  spoke,  therefore,  of  fighting 
autocracy  we  meant  that  we  were  fighting  not 
only,  or  indeed  not  so  much,  against  the  inner 
organization  of  the  German  Empire,  but  against 
its  implied  and  often  expressed  outward  purposes 
of  aggression  which  would  have  made  democ- 
racy and  a  free  life  in  other  nations  impossible. 

*  This  theory  is  not  essentially  different  in  this  regard  from  the  gen- 
erally condemned  notions  of  Machiavelli,  to  whom  the  Prussian  his- 
torian and  philosopher,  Treitschke,  frequently  refers.  It  was  more 
dangerous,  since  with  the  German  conception  of  Deutschtum  the  state 
could  command  the  enthusiastic  loyalty  of  the  individual  as  Machia- 
velli's  prince  never  could. 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS  37 

If  this  conception  of  the  autocratic  German 
state  was  an  implied  threat  against  the  freedom 
and  independence  of  other  nations  and  there- 
fore against  ourselves  a  certain  group  of  en- 
thusiasts for  Deutschtum  consciously  directed 
this  threat  at  America.  The  Pan-German  or- 
gan, the  All-deutsche  Blatter,  of  September  20, 
1902,  contained  the  following:  "In  one  hundred 
years  the  American  people  will  be  conquered  by 
the  victorious  German  spirit  so  that  it  will  pre- 
sent an  enormous  German  Empire.  Whoever 
does  not  believe  this  lacks  confidence  in  the 
strength  of  the  German  spirit." 

In  1903  Wilhelm  Hubbe-Schleiden  wrote: 
"At  the  present  moment  the  centre  of  German 
intellectual  activity  is  in  Germany;  in  the  re- 
mote future  it  will  be  in  America.  Let  them 
(the  Germans  in  America)  show  that  they  mean 
to  maintain  Deutschtum,  and  then  immigration 
may  be  directed  to  America  with  impunity." 

Doctor  Otto  Hotch,  professor  of  history  in  the 
War  Academy  of  Berlin,  had  also  written  in 
August,  1902:  "The  most  dangerous  foe  of 
Germany  in  this  generation  will  prove  to  be  the 

*  This  passage  was  written  by  a  New  York  German,  Robert  Thiem. 


38  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

United  States."  Lieutenant  von  Edelsheim, 
detailed  to  work  with  the  General  Staff  in  1901, 
had  prepared  a  study  in  which  he  said  that 
"Germany  is  the  only  great  power  which  is 

% 

in  a  position  to  conquer  the  United  States." 
Though  we  may  believe  that  these  statements 
were  extreme,  they  were  none  the  less  threaten- 
ing and  dangerous. 

According  to  the  German  conception  the  es- 
sence of  the  German  state  was  force,  and  the  force 
through  which  this  state  realized  itself  was  the 
army.  This  brings  us  immediately  to  the  sec- 
ond conception  of  militarism,  which  again  was 
fundamentally  antagonistic  to  our  own.  The 
American  attitude,  as  well  as  the  contrast,  was 
well  expressed  by  President  Wilson  in  his  speech 
at  West  Point  on  June  13,  1916,  when  he  said: 

"The  spirit  of  militarism  is  the  opposite  of 
the  civilian  spirit,  the  citizen  spirit.  In  a  coun- 
try where  militarism  prevails  the  military  man 
looks  down  upon  the  civilian,  regards  him  as 
intended  for  his,  the  military  man's,  support 
.  .  .  and  just  as  long  as  America  is  America, 
that  spirit  and  point  of  view  is  impossible  with 


us." 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS  39 

In  Germany  the  direct  opposite  was  the 
case.  The  army  was  supreme  in  the  state.  It 
was  not  responsible  to  any  civil  power,  but  to  the 
Emperor  alone.  The  soldier  swore  allegiance 
not  to  the  constitution  but  to  the  Kaiser,  his 
'war  lord."  It  was  this  peculiarly  militaristic 
arrangement  of  the  state  which  led  Napoleon  to 
say  that  Prussia  was  hatched  out  of  a  cannon- 
ball,  and  justified  the  French  military  attache's 
observation  in  1870  that  "Other  states  pos- 
sess armies,  in  Prussia  the  army  possesses  the 
state."  The  army's  function  was  to  strengthen 
and  extend  the  state  and  it  could  not  there- 
fore be  restrained  to  the  same  degree  as  other 
armies,  by  consideration  of  law  or  humanity. 
"For  me,"  the  Emperor  is  reported  to  have  said, 
"humanity  ends  with  the  Vosges." 

In  order  that  this  army  might  be  made  ef- 
ficient to  the  highest  degree,  the  Prussians  de- 
veloped and  transmitted  to  the  German  people 
a  conception  of  discipline  which  was  remarkable 
and  in  its  interest  they  often  submitted  to  extraor- 
dinary indignities.  Prussian  discipline  may  be 
defined  as  subservience  tempered  by  enthusiasm. 
How  far  this  spirit  could  be  carried  in  Germany 


40  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

was  evident  from  the  accounts  of  the  trial  of 
Rosa  Luxemburg.* 

Evidences  of  the  power  of  this  same  spirit 
were  given  to  the  world  in  the  notorious  Zabern 
Affair  in  Alsace  in  1913.  It  seems  that  a  su- 
perior officer  showed  his  contempt  for  the  civil 
population  and  instructed  his  command  that  if 
they  stabbed  an  Alsatian  who  insulted  them 
they  would  not  only  go  unpunished,  but  re- 
ceive a  reward.  The  conduct  of  the  troops  in 
the  town  and  the  attitude  of  the  officers  had 
been  so  overweening  that  they  had  made  them- 
selves thoroughly  disliked.  An  arrogant  young 

*  Rosa  Luxemburg,  killed  by  a  mob  in  January,  1919,  was  a  leader 
of  the  German  radical  and  anti-militaristic  movements.  She  had  be- 
fore the  war  denounced  the  excesses  of  the  system  in  speeches  and  was 
arrested  and  tried.  For  the  purposes  of  her  defense  the  radicals  gath- 
ered testimony  to  justify  her,  and  in  each  case  had  found  witnesses 
brave  enough  to  testify  against  the  military.  The  evidence  was  over- 
whelming, and  at  the  request  of  the  government  the  trial  was  ad- 
journed against  the  protests  of  the  defense  early  in  July,  1914.  A  few* 
of  the  most  revolting  cases  are  given  below : 

"In  the  Queen  Augusta  Guard  Regiment  No.  4,  Sergeant  Waske 
ordered  a  grenadier  to  lie  down  before  a  cuspidor,  and  then  called  out 
'Drink.'  The  grenadier  drank  from  it  quite  obediently,  which  proves 
that  'servile  obedience'  (Kadavergehorsame)  is  no  idle  phrase." 

"In  the  Guard  Train  Battalion,  Non-Commissioned  Officer  Hoffman 
ordered  exercises  which  consisted  in  bending  the  knees,  while  the  men 
had  to  hoid  a  full  manure-box  in  their  outstretched  arms." 

"In  the  50th  Infantry,  Non-Commissioned  Officer  Poeselt,  at  in- 
spection of  the  rooms,  ordered  the  recruits  to  take  cuspidors  into  their 
hands,  and  he  then  threw  the  disgusting  contents  into  their  faces." 

"In  the  King's  Grenadier  Regiment  No.  7  a  recruit  was  also  ordered 
to  drink  the  contents  of  a  cuspidor." 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS  41 

officer,  Lieutenant  Forstner,  according  to  the 
mayor,  was  jeered  by  some  children  as  he  passed 
in  the  street.  Forstner  rushed  upon  the  side- 
walk, drew  his  sword,  and  slashed  a  lame  cob- 
bler sitting  before  his  shop  over  the  head.  The 
evidence  seemed  to  indicate  that  the  cobbler  was 
quite  innocent.  Forstner,  to  quiet  the  popular 
outcry,  was  sentenced  by  court-martial  for  a 
short  period.  This  very  slight  sentence  was  very 
strongly  protested  against  by  the  military  presi- 
dent of  Berlin,  and  to  prove  the  disregard  of  the 
military  for  civilian  opinion  Lieutenant  Forst- 
ner was  immediately  afterward  promoted.  This 
spirit  of  militarism,  if  it  brought  about  disci- 
pline and  efficiency,  made  ideals  of  democracy 
like  our  own  impossible. 

In  the  last  half  of  the  century  then,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  conviction  had  increased  among  the 
Prussians  that  the  greatest  state  was  Prussia  and 
the  greatest  civilization  the  Prussian.  It  was 
the  mission  of  the  state  to  establish  and  increase 
its  dominance  and  to  spread  Kultur.  Those 
who  refused  to  recognize  its  supremacy  or  ac- 
cept its  KuJtur  were  attempting  to  interfere 
with  the  course  of  history  and  deserved  no  con- 


42  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

sideration.  Prussia  was  far  more  than  "a  geo- 
graphical expression."  It  was  little  less  than  an 
implied  state  of  war  against  the  rest  of  the 
world.  This  Prussian  ideal  it  had  created  and 
had  imposed  upon  Germany.  It  took  but  little 
persuasion  to  convince  Saxons  and  South  Ger- 
mans of  their  superiority,*  even  a  superiority 
which  they  shared  with  the  Prussians,  and  they 
had  come  to  accept  the  notion.  Grotesque  and 
fantastic  as  it  seems,  it  was  nevertheless  the  mo- 
tive force  in  recent  history.  It  was  the  delusion 
not  of  a  few  dreamers  but  of  millions  of  the  sub- 
jects of  the  Kaiser.  This  superiority  must  make 
itself  felt.  Not  until  Deutschland  should  in  esse 
and  in  posse  have  erected  herself  iiber  Alles 
would  Deutschtum  be  realized.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  Prussia's  leaders  were  quite  sin- 
cerely able  to  speak  of  the  intolerable  pressure 
upon  her  boundaries.  There  was  pressure,  but 
it  was  not  pressure  from  without.  Were  Hol- 
land or  Belgium  or  France  or  Switzerland  or 

*  Throughout  the  nineteenth  century  one  of  the  main  activities  of 
German  historians  and  philosophers  had  been  to  reinterpret  the  history 
of  the  world,  of  Europe  and  Germany,  in  order  to  give  Germany  a 
greater  and  more  important  r&le.  The  movement  received  an  immense 
impetus  along  this  line  after  the  victories  over  F-Mice  in  1870.  Cf. 
the  study  by  the  Swiss,  A.  Guilland,  "  L'Allemagne  utouvelle  et  ses  his- 
toriens  ";  also  Munroe  Smith,  "Militarism  and  Statecraft,"  pp.  211-223. 


FUNDAMENTAL  ANTAGONISMS  43 

even  Russia*  practising  or  pondering  aggres- 
sion ?  Hardly.  The  pressure  was  very  real,  but 
it  was  pressure  from  within. 

When  we  couple  willingness  to  accept  author- 
ity with  such  an  ideal  and  programme  we  can 
begin  to  understand  what  happened  in  1914. 
For  we  must  not  imagine  that  the  Prussian 
"loved  evil  for  its  own  bitter  sake."  To  him 
Prussia  and  the  war  that  made  for  her  glory 
were  the  highest  good  on  earth.  This  fanati- 
cism, this  mysticism  which  was  expressed  in 
Das  Deutschtum  and  this  autocratic  conception 
of  the  state  and  militaristic  theory  of  the  army, 
with  their  aggressive  programme,  we  were  fight- 
ing. It  was  necessary,  if  we  were  to  maintain 
our  liberties,  to  change  the  German  attitude, 
and  it  could  not  be  changed  until  the  mili- 
taristic policy  which  had  begotten  it  and  which 
had  been  so  successful  had  been  defeated. 

*  The  German  Government  had  carefully  fostered  the  idea  of  a 
"Slav  peril,"  and  we  shall  see  that  later  its  official  legend  of  the  "War  of 
Self-Defense"  threw  the  blame  upon  Russia.  If  there  was  in  reality  a 
"Slav  peril"  it  is  safe  to  say  that  it  was  not  as  serious  as  the  German 
Government  attempted  to  make  it  appear,  and  that  in  every  case  it 
was  not  the  cause  of  the  war.  The  inconsistency  of  this  contention  is 
plain  from  the  attitude  of  the  German  population  in  August,  1914. 
People  enter  upon  defensive  wars  with  determination,  but  not  with 
enthusiasm  or  exultation.  The  German  attitude  was  not  one  of  deter- 
mination, it  was  one  of  very  general  enthusiasm. 


44  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

These,  then,  were  the  true  roots  and  causes  of 
the  great  conflict. 

This  will  explain  why  the  Germans  were  our 
potential  enemies  in  1914.  How  they  became 
our  declared  and  open  enemies  will  be  plain  as 
we  trace  the  earlier  stages  of  the  World  War, 
each  phase  of  which  will  merely  bring  to  the 
surface  one  more  implication  of  their  theory  and 
programme. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR 


ideas  which  prevailed  in  Germany  on 
-•-  the  civilizing  mission  of  that  country,  on 
the  purpose  of  states  and  the  function  of  the 
army,  implied  the  necessity  of  war.  This 
necessity  was  regarded  by  her  leaders  not  as 
something  dire  to  be  forfended  and  deferred, 
but  as  a  consummation  which,  though  it  might 
involve  hardships  and  sacrifice,  was  none  the 
less  devoutly  to  be  wished.  War  was  as  natural 
and  desirable  for  the  state  as  healthy  exercise 
for  the  individual.  It  kept  the  body  politic 
in  strength  and  vigor.  According  to  Hegel, 
wars  are  as  salutary  to  the  nations  as  the  ocean 
winds  that  sweep  and  stir  the  waves  are  to  the 
restless  seas.*  They  prevent  stagnation.  This 
idea  was  repeated  by  great  teachers  like  Clause- 
vitz  and  Treitschke,  and  recently  it  had  been 

*  Cf.  J.  B.  Scott,  "  A  Survey  of  International  Relations  Between  the 
United  States  and  Germany,  1914-1917."  Pp.  xxxv-cxiv  contain  ex- 
cellent digests  of  the  more  important  German  theories  of  the  state 
and  its  mission. 

45 


46  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

much  more  widely  spread  and  reinforced  by  the 
application  of  ideas  of  biological  evolution.* 
Since  the  state  is  force,  "der  Staat  ist  Macht," 
the  supreme  test  of  the  right  of  survival  among 
states  is  their  ability  to  make  war  successfully 
and  to  conquer  their  competitors.  "Success 
alone  justifies  war."f  To  understand  German 
diplomacy  and  German  psychology  we  must 
understand  that  every  other  state  was  regarded 
therefore  as  a  rival  and  an  enemy.  States  live 
not  on  their  own  inner  strength,  but  on  other 
states.  Such  conceptions  Mr.  Vernon  Kellogg 
found  to  be  very  generally  accepted  by  the  mem- 
bers of  the  German  General  Staff,  and  naturally 
they  assumed  that  all  other  countries  held  the 
same  views  but  merely  lacked  the  logic  to 
formulate  or  the  sincerity  to  avow  them.  Too 
long  a  peace  was  to  this  highly  important  and 
advanced  wing  of  German  thought  a  national 
calamity,  and  Germany  had  been  at  peace  in 
Europe  for  over  forty  years.  The  time  had  come 
for  the  great  catharsis  which  would  restore  the 

*  Cf.  Vernon  Kellogg,  "Headquarters  Nights,"  in  Atlantic  Monthly, 
vol.  120,  pp.  145-153. 

f  General  von  Moltke,  quoted  by  Jules  Cambon  in  the  "French 
Yellow  Book,"  Document  No.  3.  Harden  has  also  said:  "Our  success 
will  absolve  us." 


THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  WORLD   WAR        47 

state  to  its  pristine  health.  Nowhere  is  this 
view  more  unreservedly  expressed  than  in  Bern- 
hardi's  "Germany  and  the  Next  War,"  and  no- 
where is  it  more  clearly  implied  than  in  the  mili- 
tary preparations  made  after  1911. 

There  was  to  be  sure  a  small  part  of  the  popu- 
lation which  understood  but  did  not  agree  with 
this  doctrine,  and  a  very  much  larger  part  which 
did  not  understand  such  metaphysic  and  biology. 
According  to  the  report  of  the  French  consuls 
in  Germany  in  1913  these  consisted  principally 
of  the  workmen,  artisans,  and  peasants  (peace- 
loving  by  instinct),  a  few  of  the  nobility  engaged 
in  business,  the  members  of  the  commercial 
classes  whose  enterprises  depended  on  credit 
or  were  supported  by  foreign  capital.  "These 
classes  of  people  either  consciously  or  instinc- 
tively prefer  peace  to  war;  but  they  are  only  a 
sort  of  makeweight  in  political  matters,  with 
limited  influence  on  public  opinion,  or  they  are 
silent  social  forces,  passive  and  defenseless 
against  the  infection  of  a  wave  of  war-like  feel- 
ing."* 

However,  as  we  have  seen,  the  party  in  favor 

*  "  French  Yellow  Book,"  Document  No.  5. 


48  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

of  peace,  though  it  may  have  been  the  numerical 
majority,  possessed  no  actual  power.  The  real 
possessors  of  power  in  Germany  were  the  party 
of  the  army  and  the  Pan-Germanists,  and  as  a 
matter  of  fact  the  two  are  almost  co-ordinate. 
A  German  of  authority,  Kurt  Eisner,  writing  in 
the  Neue  Zeit,  April  23,  1915,  made  the  follow- 
ing summary: 

"Who  wields  the  decisive  influence  on  the 
trend  of  foreign  politics  in  Germany  ?  Who 
gives  the  life  impulse  to  economic  driving  forces  ? 
Absolutely  none  other,  for  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury, than  the  Pan-Germans.  They  have  ac- 
quired a  greater  influence  on  the  shaping  of 
national  policy  than  even  the  mightiest  combina- 
tion of  interests  among  the  great  landowners  and 
capitalists.  In  the  course  of  years  they  have 
put  through  more  measures  than  all  the  political 
parties  and  all  the  parliamentary  subdivisions  of 
Germany  taken  together." 

They  were  busily  preparing  for  the  "inevita- 
ble" conflict  which  they  themselves  had  made 
inevitable.  Germany  had  increased  her  military 
establishment  very  decidedly  in  the  years  from 
1911  to  1914.  Her  standing  army  in  time  of 
peace  following  these  changes  had  grown  from 


THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR        49 

544,000  to  815,000.  During  this  period  the 
Wehrverein  conducted  a  very  active  campaign 
through  the  press  and  its  efforts  were  rewarded 
not  only  by  this  increase  in  the  size  of  the  army, 
but  also  by  the  granting  of  a  special  war  levy  in 
the  way  of  taxes  on  income  and  property,  which 
was  to  net  250,000,000  marks  for  war  purposes. 
When  a  nation  in  time  of  peace  begins  to  mort- 
gage its  capital  in  the  interest  of  its  war  estab- 
lishment, the  situation  may  well  be  considered 
threatening. 

The  explanations  offered  in  the  Reichstag 
were  to  the  effect  that  recent  events  in  the  Bal- 
kans had  altered  the  balance  of  power  in  Eu- 
rope. This  should  be  remembered  wrhen  we 
consider  the  reasons  why  the  Central  Empires 
were  so  eager  a  year  later  to  attack  Serbia. 
The  levy  included  large  sums  for  modern  ma- 
terial as  well  as  a  special  fund  which  trebled 
the  war  treasury,  kept  in  reserve  for  the  first 
requirements  for  the  mobilization;  raising  it 
from  150,000,000  marks  in  gold  to  300,000,000 
in  gold  plus  150,000,000  in  silver.  The  only 
people  to  vote  against  this  bill  were  the  Poles, 
the  Socialists,  and  the  Alsace-Lorrainers. 


50  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

One  of  the  keenest  observers  in  Berlin  be- 
fore the  war  was  Baron  Beyens,  the  Belgian 
minister.  "We  can  hardly  fail  to  see,"  he  says, 
"in  the  1913  act  a  preparation  for  making  war 
at  a  not  distant  date.  Its  call  to  arms  is  as 
clear  as  the  note  of  the  bugle  that  summons 
men  to  the  fight."  This  is  made  increasingly 
plain  from  a  secret  report  concerning  this  ac- 
tion which  was  prepared  at  Berlin  on  March 
19,  1913,  and  which  came  into  the  hands  of 
M.  Etienne,  the  French  Minister  of  War.  It 
was  printed  as  an  enclosure  in  the  second  docu- 
ment of  the  "French  Yellow  Book,"  and  contains 
a  striking  sentence,  which  shows  how  closely 
the  projected  war  was  connected  with  the  idea 
of  fulfilling  Germany's  high  mission.  "Neither 
ridiculous  shriekings  for  revenge  by  French 
chauvinists,  nor  the  Englishmen's  gnashing 
of  teeth,  nor  the  wild  gestures  of  the  Slavs  will 
turn  us  from  our  aim  of  protecting  and  extend- 
ing Deutschtum  all  the  world  over." 

But  in  addition  to  the  desire  to  prepare  for 
war,  this  same  memorandum  makes  plain  that 
it  was  part  of  the  policy  of  the  militarists  to 

*  Cf.  Beyens,  "Germany  Before  the  War,"  p.  1£8. 


THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR       51 

make  the  mere  preparation  for  war  so  extensive 
and  burdensome  that  war  itself  would  be  looked 
upon  as  a  relief.  "We  must  so  manage  matters 
that  under  the  heavy  weight  of  powerful  arma- 
ments, considerable  sacrifices,  and  strained 
political  relations,  an  outbreak  (Losschlagen) 
should  be  considered  as  a  relief,  because  after 
it  would  come  decades  of  peace  and  prosperity, 
as  after  1870."  This  interesting  document, 
certainly  symptomatic  if  not  official,  also  an- 
nounced that  plan  of  extending  German  in- 
fluence through  intrigue  and  the  sowing  of  dis- 
sension in  foreign  countries  with  which  we  have 
since  become  only  too  familiar.  Its  authors 
likewise  contemplated  the  invasion  of  Belgium 
and  a  very  considerable  programme  of  annexa- 
tions in  France  and  in  Russia.  Indeed,  the  war 
which  was  being  prepared  by  the  military  party 
was  in  their  minds  directed  against  these  two 
Powers  who  would  be  the  first  to  be  forced  to 
recognize  the  supremacy  of  Deutschtum.  After 
their  decisive  defeat,  aggressive  action  would  be 
taken  against  England,  and  possibly  against 
America. 

But  the  question  is  frequently  asked:    Was 


52  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

the  Kaiser  not  in  favor  of  peace?  The  prob- 
lem will  be  an  interesting  one  to  the  future 
historian  of  the  World  War. 

From  the  time  of  his  accession  in  1888  he 
had  repeatedly  announced  himself  in  favor  of 
peace,  and  had  seemed  to  have  coveted  the 
distinction,  so  rare  in  his  house,  of  being  re- 
garded as  a  prince  of  peace.  In  spite  of  his 
occasional  truculence,  I  believe  that  in  this 
he  was  sincere  until  the  year  1911,  or  possibly 
a  little  later.  He  had,  to  be  sure,  done  every- 
thing in  his  power  to  maintain  the  army  at  a 
high  point  of  efficiency,  and  he  preached  to  it 
and  to  his  people  the  doctrine  of  its  invincibility, 
and  of  the  high  mission  of  the  German  people. 
"We  are,"  he  had  told  his  people,  "the  salt 
of  the  earth."*  He  felt  that  he  owed  his  throne 
to  the  army,  that  his  first  duty  was  to  it,  and 
he  announced  to  his  officers  in  pride:  "These 
are  the  gentlemen  on  whom  I  can  rely." 

In  October  of  1900,  he  had  dedicated  a  statue 
to  the  Roman  Emperor  Trajan,  on  the  pedestal 
of  which  he  had  engraved  Latin  lines  to  the 
effect  that  he,  imperator  Germanorum,  had 

*  The  Kaiser's  speech,  Bremen,  March  25,  1905. 


THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR        53 

erected  this  monument  to  Trajan,  imperatori 
Romanorum.  On  that  occasion  he  made  a 
speech  which  proved  that  he  was  as  conscious 
as  any  of  his  subjects  of  the  great  but  exceed- 
ingly dangerous  mission  of  his  country: 

"Our  German  Fatherland,  to  which  I  hope 
it  will  be  granted,  through  the  harmonious 
co-operation  of  princes  and  peoples,  of  its  armies 
and  its  citizens,  to  become  in  the  future  as 
closely  united,  as  powerful,  and  as  authorita- 
tive as  once  the  Roman  world-empire  was, 
and  that,  just  as  in  the  old  times  they  said: 
'Civis  romanus  sum,'  hereafter,  at  some  time 
in  the  future,  they  will  say,  'I  am  a  German 
citizen.'  3 

But  for  all  this,  in  spite  of  his  extraordinary 
outbreak  on  the  occasion  of  the  departure  of 
the  German  troops  for  China,  and  his  seeming 
aggressiveness  at  Tangiers  and  Agadir,  he 
wanted  peace  in  the  sense  that  he  preferred 
peace  to  war.  The  peace  which  he  desired  was, 
however,  a  German  peace,  and  he  did  not  un- 
derstand that  it  involved  "either  mutual  con- 
cessions or  a  balance  of  armaments."  *  He 
wished  Germany  to  be  feared  as  well  as  re- 

*  "French  Yellow  Book,"  Document  No.  7,  Enclosure  I. 


54  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

spected  and  his  whole  world  policy  was  based 
on  this  desire.  Yet  until  1911,  possibly  until 
a  little  later,  he  had  kept  his  own  army  in  leash. 
After  this  date  a  change  took  place  in  his  own 
policy  as  well  as  in  that  of  the  military  party. 
If  they  did  not  on  all  points  coincide,  it  will 
be  plain  in  the  next  chapter  that  the  policies 
were  not  divergent  and  that,  whatever  his  apol- 
ogists may  say,  the  Kaiser  himself  is  personally 
very  largely  responsible  for  the  outbreak  of 
the  World  War.  The  generation  which  had 
grown  up  under  the  tutelage  of  teachers  like 
Treitschke  was  now  occupying  most  of  the 
positions  of  power  in  the  empire.  Pan-Ger- 
manism, with  its  programme,  was  a  natural 
outgrowth.  This  programme  of  aggressive 
militarism  and  annexations  had  been  develop- 
ing its  strength  until  it  would  have  been  al- 
most impossible  for  the  Kaiser,  even  had  he 
wished  to  do  so,  to  stem  the  tide.  It  was 
strongest  in  the  party  to  which  he  looked  for 
support,  and  he  was  out  of  sympathy  with  the 
Socialists,  its  enemies. 

The  settlement  of  the  Morocco  question  in 
1911  marks  the  final  turn  of  German  policy. 
It  was  then  that  the  die  was  cast.  That  settle- 


THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR        55 

ment  was  looked  upon  by  the  majority  of  Ger- 
mans, especially  by  the  army,  as  a  diplomatic 
defeat  and  a  blow  to  German  prestige.  Ger- 
many, to  be  sure,  had  succeeded  in  establishing 
the  principle  that  when  others  of  the  great 
Powers  increased  their  dominions  she,  by  that 
mere  fact,  was  entitled  to  compensation  and 
she  had  received  such  compensation  in  the 
French  Congo.  But  the  Germans,  unable  to 
forget  their  victory  of  1870,  expected  from 
France  a  much  greater  humility.  She  should 
have  spoken  to  the  Imperial  German  Govern- 
ment with  head  bowed  and  hat  in  hand,  in- 
stead of  presenting  herself  as  a  nation  with 
rights  that  deserved  to  be  respected. 

In  addition  to  the  regular  mobilization  of  the 
German  Army  there  is  a  preliminary  measure 
which  consists  in  warning  men  and  officers 
of  reserve  to  make  the  necessary  preparations 
and  to  hold  themselves  ready  for  war.  It  is 
a  general  call  to  attention.  "We  learn  from  the 
French  ambassador  at  Berlin: 

"This  warning  was  given  in  1911  during  the 
negotiations  which  I  was  carrying  on  with  re- 
gard to  Morocco. 

"  Now  it  has  been  given  again  about  ten  days 


56  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

ago — that  is  to  say,  at  the  moment  of  the  Aus- 
tro- Albanian  tension.  I  know  that  this  is  so, 
and  I  have  it  from  several  different  sources, 
notably  from  officers  of  the  reserve  who  have 
told  it  to  their  friends  in  the  strictest  confi- 
dence." 

Plainly  the  army  was  growing  restive  and 
in  need  of  exercise.  Even  a  considerable  wing 
of  the  Socialists  urged  war,  as  is  plain  from  the 
statement  by  Harden,  cited  in  the  last  chapter. 
The  Emperor  was  running  the  risk  of  being 
considered  more  moderate  than  the  Socialists. 
German  aspirations  and  desire  for  prestige  suf- 
fered a  further  check  after  the  Balkan  Wars 
in  1912-13,  through  which  Turkey,  Germany's 
ally,  had  been  forced  to  surrender  most  of  her 
territory  in  Europe;  and  especially  after  the  sec- 
ond Balkan  War,  when  Greece,  Serbia,  Rou- 
mania,  and  Montenegro  succeeded  in  defeating 
Bulgaria,  her  remaining  friend  along  the  coveted 
corridor  to  the  East. 

Indeed,  the  Balkan  States  were  beginning  to 
act  like  independent  entities,  and  seemed  to 
block  the  possibility  of  further  Austro-German 
expansion. 

*  Cf.  "French  Yellow  Book,"  No.  3. 


THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR        57 

These  outward  happenings  were  serious,  to 
be  sure,  but  to  the  Kaiser  one  thing  which  hap- 
pened at  home  was  probably  even  more  serious. 
After  the  Zabern  incident  a  great  outcry  was 
raised  by  the  element  in  favor  of  civilian  con- 
trol of  the  government,  and  especially  by  the 
Socialists.  So  strong  was  the  movement  that  a 
vote  of  censure  was  passed  against  the  Chancel- 
lor von  Bethmann-Hollweg  in  the  Reichstag. 
This,  to  be  sure,  involved  no  consequences, 
since  according  to  the  German  autocratic  sys- 
tem the  chancellor  is  not  responsible  to  the 
Reichstag  but  to  the  Emperor  alone.  But  at 
the  end  of  the  session,  on  May  20,  1914,  the 
Socialists  had  refused  to  rise  and  cheer  for  the 
Emperor,  as  had  always  been  done  on  such 
occasions.  The  Emperor  was  still  smarting 
under  this  slight  when  negotiations  with  Aus- 
tria concerning  the  chastisement  of  Serbia 
began. 

The  most  striking  direct  evidence  of  the 
Kaiser's  change  of  front  was  given  on  Novem- 
ber 6,  1913.  It  evidently  strengthened  an  im- 
pression which  had  already  been  forcing  itself 
upon  Jules  Cambon,  the  French  ambassador  at 


58  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

Berlin,  for  under  date  of  November  22  of  that 
year  he  wrote  as  follows: 

"BERLIN,  November  22,  1913. 
"I  have  received  from  an  absolutely  reliable 
source  an  account  of  a  conversation  which  took 
place  a  fortnight  ago  between  the  Emperor  and 
the  King  of  the  Belgians,  in  the  presence  of  the 
Chief  of  the  General  Staff — General  von  Moltke. 
This  conversation,  it  appears,  has  made  a  pro- 
found impression  on  King  Albert.  I  am  in  no 
way  surprised  at  the  impression  he  gathered, 
which  corresponds  with  what  I  have  myself  felt 
for  some  time.  Enmity  against  us  is  increas- 
ing, and  the  Emperor  has  ceased  to  be  the  friend 
of  peace."  * 

There  can  be  no  question  of  the  reliability  of 
M.  Cambon's  information,  for  the  report  of  this 
conversation  was  given  him  by  Baron  Beyens, 
the  Belgian  minister  at  Berlin,  who  doubtless 
discussed  the  matter  with  King  Albert  himself. 
Baron  Beyens  says: 

"On  this  occasion  the  Emperor  told  King 
Albert  that  he  looked  upon  war  with  France  as 
*  inevitable  and  close  at  hand.'  What  reason 
did  he  give  for  this  pessimistic  statement,  which 
impressed  his  royal  visitor  all  the  more  strongly 

*  "French  Yellow  Book,"  No.  6. 


since  the  belief  in  the  peaceful  sentiments  of 
the  Emperor  had  not  yet  been  shaken  in  Bel- 
gium? He  pointed  out  that  France  herself 
wanted  war,  and  that  she  was  arming  rapidly 
with  that  end  in  view,  as  was  proved  by  the 
vote  on  the  law  enacting  a  three  years'  term  of 
military  service.  At  the  same  time  he  declared 
that  he  felt  certain  of  victory.  The  Belgian 
monarch,  who  was  better  informed  as  to. the 
real  inclinations  of  the  French  Government  and 
people,  tried  in  vain  to  enlighten  him,  and  to 
dispel  from  his  mind  the  false  picture  that  he 
drew  from  the  language  of  a  handful  of  fanatical 
patriots,  the  picture  of  a  France  thirsting  for  war. 
"On  the  6th  of  November  General  von 
Moltke,  chief  of  the  general  staff,  after  a  dinner 
to  which  the  Emperor,  in  honor  of  his  guest, 
had  invited  the  leading  officials  present  in  Ber- 
lin, had  a  conversation  with  King  Albert.  He 
expressed  himself  in  the  same  terms  as  his  sov- 
ereign on  the  subject  of  war  with  France, 
asserted  that  it  was  bound  to  come  soon,  and 
insisted  still  more  emphatically  on  the  certain 
prospect  of  success,  in  view  of  the  enthusiasm 
with  which  the  whole  German  nation  would 
gird  up  its  loins  to  beat  back  the  traditional 
foe.  General  von  Moltke  used  the  same  blus- 
tering language  that  evening  to  the  Belgian 
military  attache,  who  sat  next  to  him  at  table. 
I  have  been  told  that  later  in  the  evening  he 
showed  a  similar  lack  of  reserve  toward  other 
military  attaches  in  whom  he  was  pleased  to 
confide,  or  whom  he  wished  to  impress. 


60  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

"The  real  object  of  these  confidential  out- 
bursts is  not  hard  to  discover.  They  were  an 
invitation  to  our  country,  face  to  face  witl?  the 
danger  that  threatened  western  Europe,  to 
throw  herself  into  the  arms  of  the  stronger, 
arms  ready  to  open,  to  clasp  Belgium — yes,  and 
to  crush  her.  When  we  think  of  the  ultimatum 
issued  to  Belgium  on  the  following  2d  of  Au- 
gust, we  realize  to  what  an  act  of  servility  a  ad 
cowardice  William  II,  through  this  Potsdam  in- 
terview, would  fain  have  driven  King  Albert."* 

The  fact  that  Von  Moltke,  chief  of  the  Gen- 
eral Staff,  should  have  taken  the  pains  to  repeat 
the  same  views  leads  us  to  conclude  that  he  and 
his  imperial  master  had  decided  to  "feel  out" 
King  Albert,  and  if  possible,  by  convincing  him 
of  Germany's  strength,  induce  him  to  step  aside 
when  the  time  should  come  for  the  invasion  of 
Belgium.  It  is  reasonable  to  believe  that  Wil- 
liam II  was  already  looking  forward  to  this 
"necessity,"  and  that  he  had  already  agreed 
with  his  chief  of  staff  upon  the  terms  under 
which  was  to  be  issued  the  ultimatum  which 
shocked  the  neutral  world. 

The  only  question  really  open  to  historians  is 
whether  William  II  honestly  believed  that 
France  was  threatening  him  with  war.  In  the 

*  Cf.  Beyens,  "Germany  Before  the  War,"  pp.  36-38. 


THE   CAUSE  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR        61 

following  year,  he,  with  his  advisers,  was,  as 
we  shall  see  from  German  testimony,  to  decide 
that  it  would  be  to  Germany's  advantage  to 
force  the  issue.  He  had  reached  an  under- 
standing with  the  army,  and  up  to  this  time 
the  power  of  the  Kaiser  had  been  the  only  effec- 
tive check  on  the  plans  of  the  militarists  and 
Pan-Germans.  The  conflict  they  had  long  de- 
sired was  now  bound  to  come.  We  have  no 
evidence  to  show  that  the  Kaiser  sympathized 
with  or  encouraged  their  dreams  of  annexa- 
tions. It  is  difficult  to  believe,  however,  after 
the  statements  of  his  chancellors  and  the  results 
of  the  treaty  of  Brest-Litovsk  that  he  disap- 
proved of  them.  What  these  designs  were  we 
know  from  President  Wilson's  statement: 

"Their  plan  was  to  throw  a  broad  belt  of 
German  military  power  and  political  control 
across  the  very  centre  of  Europe  and  beyond 
the  Mediterranean,  into  the  heart  of  Asia;  and 
Austria-Hungary  was  to  be  as  much  their  tool 
and  pawn  as  Serbia  or  Bulgaria  or  Turkey  or 
the  ponderous  states  of  the  East.  Austria- 
Hungary,  indeed,  was  to  become  part  of  the 
Central  German  Empire,  absorbed  and  domi- 
nated by  the  same  forces  and  influences  that 
had  originally  cemented  the  German  States 
themselves.  The  dream  had  its  heart  at  Ber- 


62  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

lin.  It  could  have  had  a  heart  nowhere  else. 
It  rejected  the  idea  of  solidarity  of  race  entirely. 
The  choice  of  peoples  played  no  part  in  it  at  all. 
It  contemplated  binding  together  racial  and 
political  units  which  could  be  kept  together 
only  by  force — Czechs,  Magyars,  Croats,  Serbs, 
Roumanians,  Turks,  Armenians — the  proud 
states  of  Bohemia  and  Hungary,  the  stout  little 
commonwealths  of  the  Balkans,  the  indomitable 
Turks,  the  subtile  peoples  of  the  East.  These 
peoples  did  not  wish  to  be  united.  They  ar- 
dently desired  to  direct  their  own  affairs,  would 
be  satisfied  only  by  the  presence  or  the  con- 
stant threat  of  armed  men.  They  would  live 
under  a  common  power  only  by  sheer  compul- 
sion and  await  the  day  of  revolution.  But  the 
German  military  statesmen  had  reckoned  with 
all  that  and  were  ready  to  deal  with  it  in  their 
own  way."* 

Pan-Germans  and  militarists  felt  that  the 
first  step  should  and  must  be  directed  against 
France.  How  they  intended  to  motivate  such 
action  is  plain  from  the  signed  statement  made 
for  the  Committee  on  Public  Information  by 
David  Starr  Jordan: 

"In  the  summer  of  1913  I  learned  of  a  meet- 
ing of  the  Friedensfreunde  to  be  held  in  Nurem- 
berg in  July.  I  attended  the  meeting  and  be- 

*  Address  of  June  14,  1917. 


THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR        63 

came  acquainted  with  a  number  of  leading 
Democrats,  and  with  a  good  many  others  in- 
terested in  peace,  though  not  on  a  democratic 
basis.  I  was  invited  to  come  back  to  speak  in 
the  German  cities,  and  I  found  time  in  Decem- 
ber ...  to  give  lectures  in  Frankfurt,  Wies- 
baden, Mannheim,  Stuttgart,  and  Munich. 
Through  my  friends  I  learned  a  good  deal  of 
the  plans  of  the  Pan  Germanists  and  especially 
of  the  German  General  Staff. 

"In  brief,  they  hoped  to  bring  on  war  in 
1914.  Presumably,  at  that  time,  through  dis- 
turbances to  be  created  in  Alsace-Lorraine. 
They  were  then  proposing  to  take  Belgium  and 
Holland — Holland  for  the  sake  of  making  Ant- 
werp the  center  for  the  coming  attack  upon 
England.  They  wished  especially  to  take  the 
two  departments  of  Nord  and  Pas-de-Calais 
from  France.  They  proposed  to  make  of  Bou- 
logne the  great  seaport  of  Germany,  surround- 
ing its  broad,  flat  bay  with  breakwaters,  doing 
all  this  before  England  would  enter  the  war, 
and  removing  the  German  fleet  to  Boulogne. 
They  had  a  new  German  name  for  Boulogne, 
but  I  do  not  find  it  in  my  notes  and  do  not  rec- 
ollect it.  They  were  also  to  take  Paris  and 
exact  an  indemnity  that  would  pay  the  ex- 
penses of  the  war;  25,000,000  marks  was  the 
figure  I  heard  mentioned.  After  this  they  were 
to  treat  France  with  great  lenience,  relieving 
her  of  all  necessity  for  maintaining  an  army 
and  navy  and  defending  her  from  her  great 
arch-enemy,  Great  Britain.  It  was  thought 


64  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

that  France  being  wholly  degenerate  would  not 
resist,  and  she  could  then  devote  herself  to 
commerce  and  to  the  continuing  of  loans  of 
money  to  finance  German  industry.  .  .  . 

"I  suppose  that  the  Zabern  incident  and  the 
arrest  of  'Oncle  Hansi'  (Jean  Jacques  Waltz) 
were  moves  in  the  direction  of  inciting  trouble 
in  Alsace,  getting  a  protest  from  France  to  be 
followed  by  a  sudden  ultimatum.  The  death 
of  the  Archduke  (Francis  Ferdinand,  June  28, 
1914),  whether  planned  in  Budapesth  or  not, 
served  to  make  the  way  to  war  easier,  by  be- 
ginning it  in  the  southeast."  * 

It  is  probable  that  William  II,  still  smarting 
under  the  slight  offered  by  the  Socialists  on 
May  20,  1914,  and  still  chagrined  over  the  out- 
come of  the  Morocco  question  and  the  Balkan 
Wars,  was  as  anxious  to  show  his  power  and 
re-establish  his  credit  with  all  parties  as  he  was 
to  humiliate  Serbia.  It  will  be  plain,  moreover, 
that  before  Austria  issued  the  ultimatum  to 
Serbia  he  had  decided  to  risk  if  not  to  provoke 
war  with  Russia  and  with  France. 

*  Cf.  "The  Study  of  the  Great  War."  by  Samuel  B.  Harding,  p.  27. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  OCCASION  OF  THE   WORLD  WAR 

FN  1914  Europe  was  in  a  state  of  tension  which 
•*-  had  lasted  six  years,  and  which  was  begin- 
ning "to  try  the  nerves"  of  the  great  Powers. 
More  than  anything  else  the  movement  in  the 
Balkans  was  responsible  for  this  general  rest- 
lessness. The  situation,  especially  in  view  of 
the  increase  of  armaments  in  Germany,  of  which 
we  have  already  spoken,  and  the  French  reply, 
by  increasing  the  period  of  military  service 
from  two  years  to  three,  and  the  general  ag- 
gressiveness of  Berlin,  made  war  seem  imminent. 
The  Balkan  Peninsula  had  become  the  storm- 
centre,  for,  as  we  have  seen,  the  developments 
there  were  threatening  to  overturn  the  unfor- 
tunate system  of  balance  of  power  on  which 
European  politics  had  so  long  rested.  Yet 
in  the  early  stages  of  the  recent  war  we  were 
inclined  to  pay  too  much  attention  to  what 
was  happening  in  the  Balkans  primarily,  and 

65 


66  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

have  therefore  seen  the  developments  that  led 
to  the  conflict  somewhat  out  of  focus. 

In  July,  1914,  the  world  was  trying  to  look 
into  the  future  through  the  passes  of  the  Bal- 
kans, Events  there  which  in  ordinary  times 
would  have  been  of  minor  consequence  loomed 
large  and  portentous.  When  a  Bosnian,  Ga- 
brilo  Princep,  who  was  an  Austrian  subject, 
assassinated  the  Austrian  crown  prince,  Francis 
Ferdinand,  and  his  wife,  and  war  followed,  it 
was  natural  under  the  circumstances  and  under 
the  stress  of  the  first  shock  to  attribute  the 
war  to  Princep's  crime.  Yet  the  assassination 
of  the  archduke  was  no  more  the  cause  of  the 
war  in  any  philosophical  sense  than  the  fly  on 
the  telescope  is  the  cause  of  the  great  spot  on 
the  sun.  It  was  not  the  cause  of  the  war,  it 
was  merely  the  occasion.  The  causes  lay  deeper 
as  we  have  already  seen.  The  war  would  have 
come  in  any  case;  Princep's  crime  merely  made 
it  certain  that  it  must  come  in  1914.  To  un- 
derstand the  reasons  for  this  we  must  take 
a  rapid  glance  at  the  situation  in  the  Bal- 
kans. 

In  1908  Austria-Hungary  had  annexed  Bos- 


THE  OCCASION  OF  THE  WORLD   WAR      67 

ma  and  Herzegovina,  violating  by  this  act  Ar- 
ticle XXV  of  the  Congress  of  Berlin.  Russia, 
which  was  inclined  to  assume  the  attitude  of 
protector  to  the  Slav  states,  and  whose  interests 
under  the  Congress  of  Berlin  had  been  disre- 
garded, had  at  that  time  not  yet  recovered 
from  the  Russo-Japanese  War,  1904-5,  and  was 
forced  to  acquiesce  when  the  Kaiser  boldly  pro- 
claimed that  he  "took  his  stand  in  shining  ar- 
mor by  the  side  of  his  ally."  Little  Serbia  was, 
therefore,  forced  to  submit,  though  the  discon- 
tent at  the  action  of  Austria-Hungary  was  about 
as  keen  in  the  annexed  provinces  as  it  was 
in  the  kingdom  of  Serbia  itself.  This  tension, 
which  was  the  result  of  a  violation  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  national  self-determination,  was  bound 
to  continue  and  to  increase.  France  and  Eng- 
land, who  had  already  come  to  an  entente  cor- 
diale  after  the  settlement  of  the  Egyptian  ques- 
tion, refused  to  go  to  war  over  this  increase 
of  Austro-Hungarian  influence.  In  1911  came 
the  second  Morocco  crisis,  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  had  particularly  embittered  Germany 
and  aroused  particular  resentment  in  the  Ger- 
man military  party.  But  the  great  surprise 


68  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

of  this  whole  period  occurred  when  Greece, 
Serbia,  Bulgaria,  and  Montenegro  formed  a 
secret  league  to  expel  Turkey  from  Europe 
and  liberate  their  fellow  Christians  from 
Turkish  misrule.  They  declared  war  on  Turkey 
in  October,  1912,  and  the  great  Powers,  because 
of  their  own  divergent  and  selfish  aims,  and 
the  fact  that  they  were  taken  unawares,  failed 
to  restrain  the  new  alliance.  Contrary  to  ex- 
pectations, the  Balkan  allies  met  with  full  suc- 
cess, and  Turkey  was  forced  to  surrender  most 
of  her  territory  in  Europe,  by  the  Treaty  of 
London,  May  30,  1913.  The  Central  Empires, 
Germany  and  Austria,  had  of  course  expected 
that  their  ally,  Turkey,  would  emerge  victorious, 
or  at  least  make  a  better  showing. 

Only  a  month  later  a  new  war  broke  out, 
when  Bulgaria  attacked  her  recent  allies  as 
a  result  of  disputes  over  a  division  of  conquered 
territory.  Roumania  joined  Serbia,  Greece, 
and  Montenegro,  and  Bulgaria  was  defeated. 
Most  of  the  conquered  territory  was  therefore 
given  to  Greece,  Serbia,  and  Montenegro, 
though,  because  of  Austrian,  German,  and  Ital- 
ian objection,  Serbia  was  denied  any  seaport 


THE  OCCASION  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR      69 

on  the  Adriatic.  In  both  these  wars  Austria 
and  Germany  had  failed  to  diagnose  the  situa- 
tion and  had  supported  the  losing  side,  first 
Turkey  and  then  Bulgaria.  The  loss  of  Ger- 
man prestige  was  the  more  serious,  as  the 
Turkish  Army  had  been  trained  and  equipped 
by  Germans.  The  Balkans  were  therefore  a  sore 
point,  and  the  increase  in  Serbia's  power  was 
to  the  Central  Empires  the  more  distressing, 
since  it  helped  to  block  the  way  to  the  East, 
and  made  the  dream  of  Middle  Europe  more 
difficult  of  realization.  Serbia,  furthermore, 
was  beginning  an  agitation  for  a  greater  Serbia 
which  was  to  include  also  the  Serbs  of  the  prov- 
inces so  recently  annexed  to  Austria-Hungary. 
England  had  acquired  Egypt,  and  France  Mo- 
rocco. Germany  and  Austria-Hungary,  hungry 
for  increased  power  and  territory,  were  far  from 
satisfied. 

Such  was  the  situation  when  the  Archduke 
Francis  Ferdinand  and  his  wife  were  shot  down 
in  the  streets  of  the  capital  of  Bosnia.  Francis 
Ferdinand  had  given  promise  of  becoming  an 
able  ruler  of  the  Dual  Monarchy.  It  is  pos- 
sible that  had  he  arrived  at  power,  he  would 


70  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

have  given  at  least  some  rights  to  the  oppressed 
nationalities  in  the  conglomerate  Hapsburg 
state.  There  is  not  the  slightest  probability, 
however,  that  he  would  have  looked  with  favor 
on  the  desire  of  the  Serbs  to  be  united  in  a  king- 
dom of  their  own. 

His  entry  into  Serajevo  was  particularly  ill- 
timed,  for  to  expect  that  at  the  time  of  the  great 
Serbian  national  holiday  the  Bosnian  Serbs, 
who  had  been  forcibly  annexed  to  the  dominions 
of  his  house  six  years  before,  would  deck  their 
capital  with  flags  and  receive  him  with  honor 
and  gratitude  was  folly.  The  Serbian  Govern- 
ment had  warned  Austria  of  the  risk  and  danger. 
With  splendid,  if  somewhat  insolent,  courage  he 
had  come,  he  had  seen,  he  had  died  with  his 
consort.  But  to  imagine  that  the  death  of  this 
Austrian  archduke,  whose  name  was  scarcely 
known  in  Brussels,  was  the  reason  why  Prussian 
armies  four  weeks  later  invaded  Belgium  is  to 
give  up  the  search  for  historical  causes.  Is  it 
for  his  sake,  to  keep  this  proud  and  lonely  ghost 
company,  that  over  4,000,000  men  have  gone  to 
their  graves  ?  Is  it  because  of  him  in  any  sense 
that  over  2,000,000  Americans  have  crossed  the 


THE  OCCASION  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR     71 

seas  and  in  desperate  combat  faced  the  Ger- 
mans on  the  flats  of  Flanders,  the  plains  of 
Picardy,  and  the  hills  of  the  Woevre  and  of 
the  Vosges?  To  believe  this  is  to  deny  that 
the  wills  and  desires  of  men  or  nations  play 
any  part  on  this  world's  stage.  It  would  be 
sacrilegious  to  every  ideal  of  liberty  and  justice 
to  entertain  the  thought  that  this  is  all,  and 
that  for  this  only  any  single  citizen  had  been 
called  from  his  peaceful  pursuits  and  sent  from 
his  shop  or  his  field  to  fight,  perchance  to  die, 
in  an  unknown  land.  This  act  was  done  by 
those  opposed  to  Germany;  and  so,  to  say  this 
was  "the  challenge"  would  suggest  that  the 
opponents  of  Germany  were  the  more  ready  and 
anxious  for  the  duel.  The  true  cause  of  the  war 
is  much  simpler  than  this.  The  true  cause  of 
the  war  is  the  fact  that  the  powers  in  Germany 
which  could  make  war  desired  ardently  to  do  so, 
and  therefore  seized  upon  this  assassination,  as 
a  German  Socialist  expressed  it,  as  a  "gift  from 
heaven."  Their  desire  for  war  is  evident  from 
the  previous  chapters.  It  is  now  possible  to 
show  the  stages  by  which  they  transferred  this 
desire  into  action. 


72  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

Let  us  turn  for  a  moment  to  the  protagonists 
in  this  great  drama. 

The  archduke  had  been  the  friend  of  Kaiser 
William  II.  How  was  the  latter  to  receive  the 
news?  Let  us  take  the  account  of  a  careful 
if  interested  witness,  Baron  Beyens,  the  Bel- 
gian minister  at  Berlin: 

"All  eyes  were  turned  toward  Kiel,  where 
the  fatal  news  reached  William  II.  while  he  was 
taking  part  in  a  yacht  race  on  board  his  own 
clipper.  He  turned  pale,  and  was  heard  to 
murmur:  'So  my  work  of  the  past  twenty -five 
years  will  have  to  be  started  all  over  again ! ' 
Enigmatic  words,  which  may  be  interpreted  in 
various  ways  !  To  the  British  ambassador,  who 
was  also  at  Kiel,  with  the  British  squadron  re- 
turning from  the  Baltic,  he  unburdened  himself 
in  more  explicit  fashion:  'Es  ist  ein  Verbrechen 
gegen  das  Deutscktum.'  By  this  he  probably 
meant  that  Germany,  feeling  her  own  interests 
assailed  by  the  Serajevo  crime,  would  make 
common  cause  with  Austria  to  exact  a  full  retri- 
bution. With  more  self-control  than  usual, 
however,  he  abstained  from  all  further  public 
utterances  on  the  subject."  * 

"It  is  a  crime  against  Dewtschtum."  We 
have  already  seen  that  the  Emperor  was  con- 

*  "Germany  Before  the  War,"  p.  276. 


THE  OCCASION  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR      73 

vinced  that  war  with  France  was  inevitable, 
and  the  statement  of  Mr.  Jordan  shows  that  a 
large  party  in  Germany  desired  such  a  war  in 
the  interest  of  Deutschtum,  and  regardless  of  the 
Balkans.  This  was  the  view  of  the  General 
Staff,  and  the  Kaiser,  as  we  saw,  was,  on  es- 
sentials at  least,  in  accord  with  General  von 
Moltke.  Was  the  time  favorable  for  the  "in- 
evitable" stroke? 

Russia  was  in  no  condition  to  make  war. 
Austria  and  Germany  were  convinced  of  this. 
It  was  the  expressed  opinion  of  the  Austrian 
ambassador  at  Berlin  and  the  German  ambas- 
sador at  Vienna.  France  was  in  the  hands  of 
unpatriotic  radicals,  and  the  Minister  of  War 
had  confessed  that  the  army  was  poorly  sup- 
plied. Reports  from  London  seemed  to  prove 
that  England  would  not  enter  the  conflict,  and 
she  seemed,  furthermore,  on  the  verge  of  civil 
war  over  the  Irish  question.  So  favorable  a 
juncture  of  circumstances  could  hardly  occur 
again.  Either  Russia  and  France  would  have 
to  stand  aside  in  humiliation  while  Germany 
and  Austria  forced  their  way  to  the  east  through 
Serbia  and  realized  Middle  Europe  or,  if  they 


74  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

refused  to  accept  such  humiliation  and  offered 
resistance,  the  score  could  now  very  advanta- 
geously be  settled  and  Germany's  two  European 
rivals  be  rendered  harmless  for  the  future. 

Americans  have  often  insisted  on  the  German 
inability  to  understand  the  psychology  of  other 
peoples.  Let  us  not  fall  into  the  same  error 
and  fail  to  understand  the  psychology  of  the 
Germans.  They  are  a  different  people,  na- 
tionalistic and  imperialistic,  who  believe  in  the 
superiority  of  Deutschtum.  Their  young  men 
have  not  been  trained  to  honor  and  respect  a 
Washington  or  a  Lincoln,  who  would  sacrifice 
all  and  even  themselves  in  the  interest  of  truth, 
of  justice,  of  humanity.  Their  national  heroes, 
the  men  they  are  taught  to  revere,  were  men 
of  force,  who  succeeded  through  deceit.  Bis- 
marck, who  boasted  of  having  brought  on 
a  successful  war  through  suppression  of  the 
truth,  is  their  Lincoln.  Frederick  the  Great 
wrote  from  the  camp  at  Mollwitz  to  his  minis- 
ter, de  Podervils:  "If  there  is  anything  to  be 
gained  by  it,  we  will  be  honest;  if  deception  is 
necessary,  let  us  be  cheats."  Frederick  the 

*  Letter  dated  May  12,  1741.     Cf.  also  J.  B.  Scott,  "A  Survey,"  pp. 
xxii  et  seq. 


THE  OCCASION  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR      75 

Great  is  their  Washington.  Professor  Adolf 
Lasson,  one  of  their  greatest  and  most  hon- 
ored teachers  of  international  law,  tells  them: 
"The  state  breaking  a  treaty  enters  into  a  state 
of  war;  it  acts  unwisely  whenever  it  challenges 
a  decision  through  the  force  of  arms,  unless  it 
is  sure  of  its  superior  force.  If  it  has  this  force, 
then  it  may  do  whatever  it  pleases;  for  between 
states  the  right  of  the  strong  alone  prevails. 
.  .  .  The  weaker  is,  in  spite  of  any  and  all 
treaties,  the  prey  of  the  stronger,  whenever  the 
latter  wills  to  and  can  prey  upon  it."  In- 
stead, therefore,  of  being  shocked  to  find  that  a 
great  state  like  Germany  should  deliberately 
stoop  to  violence  and  fraud,  we  should  rather 
expect  it,  and  instead  of  granting  ready  belief 
to  her  excuses  we  must  weigh  them  with  care. 
In  the  process  of  doing  so  we  shall  arrive  at  far 
different  conceptions  of  the  origin  of  the  war 
than  those  which  prevailed  in  the  early  period 
of  our  neutrality,  and  we  shall  perhaps  be 
forced  to  agree  with  Doctor  Dernberg  (for  a 
time  the  Kaiser's  personal  agent  in  America) 
and  Doctor  Delbriick  when,  in  their  petition 
printed  in  Deutsche  Politik  for  September  28, 
1917,  they  proclaim  in  sorrow: 


76  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

"Our  lies  are  coarse  and  improbable,  our 
ambiguity  is  pitiful  simplicity,  and  our  intrigues 
are  without  salt  and  without  grace." 

Let  us  consider  the  problem  as  it  presented 
itself  to  the  Kaiser  and  his  staff.  The  time  had 
come  when  Germany  could  secure  cheaply  and 
with  promising  chances  of  success  either  a  great 
diplomatic  triumph  or  a  swift  military  victory 
which  would  establish  her  pre-eminence  in  Eu- 
rope. Her  own  army  had  recently  been  in- 
creased to  a  point  beyond  which  she  could 
hardly  hope  to  go.  Her  enemies,  Russia  and 
France,  were  in  poor  case.  There  could,  there- 
fore, be  no  question  of  the  issue  if  the  system 
of  alliance  which  she  had  built  up  could  be 
forced  to  move.  Here  was  a  chance  for  a  war 
which  Austria  ardently  desired,  and  it  was 
rather  doubtful  whether  she  could  be  made  to 
co-operate  fully  in  any  future  action  directed 
merely  or  primarily  against  France.  If  Italy, 
which  did  not  look  with  favor  on  Serbia's 
desire  to  reach  the  Adriatic,  would  co-oper- 
ate, and  especially  if  England,  which  wanted 
peace,  would  stand  aside,  the  great  stakes 
would  be  swiftly  won.  Italy  was  a  partner 


THE  OCCASION  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR      77 

with  Austria  and  Germany  in  the  Triple  Alli- 
ance. She  was  bound  to  co-operate  only  in  a 
defensive  war,  and  one  to  which  England  was 
not  a  party  (for  in  that  case  her  coasts  would 
be  open  to  the  British  fleet). 

The  one  element  at  home  whose  enthusiasm 
it  was  desirable  to  enlist  was  the  Social-Demo- 
cratic party.  This  could  be  done  if  the  war, 
which  was  to  be  provoked,  could  be  made  to 
appear  defensive  in  character.  The  aim  of  her 
diplomatic  manoeuvres  was,  therefore,  to  pro- 
voke a  war  in  which — 

1.  Italy  would  join  her. 

2.  England  would  remain  neutral, 

3.  The  Social-Democrats  would  be  with  the 
government. 

How  could  this  end  be  accomplished  ? 

It  would  be  ridiculous  for  Austria  to  make  a 
war  on  little  Serbia,  and  claim  that  it  was  de- 
fensive. It  could  be  accomplished,  however,  if 
Russia  could  be  made  the  scapegoat  and  made 
to  appear  the  aggressor.  The  menace  of  czar- 
ism  would  have  a  powerful  effect  upon  the 
masses  in  Germany.  Therefore,  plans  must  be 
laid  to  locate  the  blame  in  Saint  Petersburg. 


78  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

One  of  two  things  would  therefore  be  certain. 
Austria  could  safely  be  allowed  to  make  war 
on  Serbia  and  reduce  her  to  the  position  of  a 
vassal  state.  The  frontier  of  the  Central  Em- 
pires could  then  start  moving  southward  through 
the  Balkans  toward  the  east,  like  a  creep- 
ing barrage,  and  Middle  Europe  would  be 
on  the  way  to  realization.  This  in  itself  would 
be  a  large  step  toward  achieving  the  supremacy 
of  Deutschtum,  and  would  seriously  impair  the 
power  and  prestige  of  Russia  and  France.  The 
push  must  now  be  made,  and  if  Russia,  as 
seemed  highly  probable,  became  involved,  the 
blame  must  be  cast  upon  her.  Austria  and 
Germany  had  the  great  advantage  in  the  sub- 
sequent diplomatic  contest  of  knowing  exactly 
their  objectives,  and  the  possibilities  were  very 
probably  rehearsed,  and  the  moves  in  the 
diplomatic  game  played  out  in  advance. 

Accordingly,  to  meet  the  situation  Austria 
would  have  to  issue  an  ultimatum  in  terms  so 
harsh  that  Serbia  could  not  possibly  accept  it. 
A  time  limit  must  be  set,  so  short  that  there 
would  be  no  possibility  that  the  ambassadors  of 
the  Powers,  who  were  away  on  their  summer 


vacations,  could  return  and  act  in  effective 
concert.  If  any  extension  of  this  time  limit 
were  asked  for  it  must  be  refused,  as  it  was 
refused  when  Sazanoff  asked  for  it.*  If  any 
attempt  were  made  to  refer  the  matter  to 
the  Hague  Tribunal  it  must  be  rejected.  Such 
a  proposal  was,  in  fact,  made  by  Serbia  with 
her  acceptance  of  most  of  the  conditions  of  the 
Austrian  ultimatum. f  Again,  on  July  29,  the 
Czar  himself,  in  a  personal  telegram  to  the 
Kaiser,  proposed  that  the  Austro-Serbian  prob- 
lem be  given  over  to  the  Hague  Tribunal. 
This  was  awkward,  indeed,  for  how  could  one 
make  the  Czar  the  aggressor  after  this?  Any 
reference  to  this  telegram  had,  therefore,  to  be 
omitted  from  the  memorial  submitted  to  the 
Reichstag  by  Von  Bethmann-Hollweg. 

Any  attempt  of  the  disinterested  Powers  to 
mediate  must  be  rejected.  England  made  this 
proposal,  Italy  and  France  willingly  acceded, 
but  when  Germany  was  asked  to  unite  with 
them  in  mediation  she  refused,  f 

*  "British  Blue  Book,"  No.  13,  and  "Russian  Orange  Book,"  No.  4. 
t  Reply   of   Serbian    Government    to   the   Austro-Huagarian    note. 
"Serbian  Blue  Book,"  No.  39. 

J" British  Blue  Book,"  Nos.  36  and  84;  "German  White  Book,"  No.  15. 


80  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

If  Germany  were  called  upon  to  formulate 
some  counter-proposal  she  must  decline  to  do 
so,  and  she  did  decline  when  Edward  Grey,  after 
Germany's  refusal  to  accept  the  mediation  of 
the  four  Powers,  asked  that  she  suggest  any 
other  plan.* 

Germany  would  be  willing  only  to  propose 
direct  negotiations  between  Russia  and  Aus- 
tria. Previous  understanding  had  very  prob- 
ably been  reached  between  Austria  and  Ger- 
many that  Austria  would  refuse  to  yield,  f 
When  later  it  appeared  that  England  would 
stand  by  France  and  Russia,  and  that  Italy 
would  not  join  the  Triple  Alliance,  Austria  hesi- 
tated, and  when  the  Russian  fqreign  minister 
made  his  second  proposal,  on  July  31,  to  allow 
the  great  Powers  to  examine  the  Serbian  satis- 
factions, Austria  seemed  inclined  to  yield,  but 
by  that  time  the  matter  was  already  far  be- 
yond her  control,  and  the  German  council  of 
war,  held  in  Potsdam  on  the  evening  of  July  29, 


*  "British  Blue  Book,"  No.  84. 

f  England,  France,  and  Russia  agreed  to  accept  any  mediation  pro- 
posals made  by  Germany  and  Austria  which  would  preserve  peace.  Cf. 
"British  Blue  Book,"  Nos.  78,  84,  and  111;  "French  Yellow  Book," 
No.  86;  "Russian  Orange  Book,"  No.  64. 


THE  OCCASION  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR      81 

had  already  decided  to  make  war  on  France 
and  Russia.  The  German  Government  was 
waiting  now  only  for  a  pretext. 

To  carry  out  such  a  plan,  a  diplomatic  cam- 
paign of  indirection  would  certainly  be  neces- 
sary. It  is  now  possible  to  show,  from  German 
testimony,  that  the  German  Government  had 
recourse  to  such  indirection  throughout  the 
course  of  its  negotiations. 

While  the  world  was  still  under  the  shock  of 
the  suddenness  under  which  the  catastrophe 
came,  historians  sought  eagerly  for  an  explana- 
tion in  the  various  white,  yellow,  and  blue  pa- 
pers, published  by  the  different  governments, 
and  especially  in  the  White  Paper  published  by 
Germany,  which  curiously  enough  had  been 
prepared  and  was  ready  for  issue  before  the 
war  was  really  under  way,  on  August  3.  If  we 
would  correctly  fix  the  responsibility  for  the 
war,  however,  we  must  look  to  other  sources. 

From  the  first  Germany  was  to  pretend  that 
she  knew  nothing  about  the  Austrian  ultima- 
tum. Her  ambassadors  were  all  instructed  to 
make  this  statement,  and  it  was  repeated  by 
Lichnowsky  at  London,  who  received  a  special 


82  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

telegram  from  the  government;  by  Schoen  in 
Paris,  and  by  Von  Jagow,  the  Secretary  of 
Foreign  Affairs  himself,  at  Berlin.  So  fre- 
quently was  this  reiterated  that  so  careful  a 
historian  as  Mr.  Stowell  was  willing  to  accept 
the  German  statement,  in  spite  of  its  inherent 
improbability,  for  according  to  the  terms  of  the 
Triple  Alliance,  every  member  is  bound  to  lay 
before  its  allies  any  diplomatic  matters  which 
may  involve  the  alliance.  Indeed,  so  well  was 
this  understood  that  in  1913,  when  Austria  had 
been  tempted  to  take  the  same  action,  she  laid 
her  proposals  for  aggressive  action  against  Ser- 
bia before  both  Italy  and  Germany.  If  Aus- 
tria and  Germany  did  not  lay  them  before  Italy 
in  1914  it  was  only  because  they  had  been  con- 
vinced by  Italy's  reply  in  1913  that  she  would 
never  admit  that  such  action  against  Serbia 
could  possibly  be  defensive  in  character  or  bind 
her  to  co-operation.  If,  however,  Austria  and 
Germany  succeeded  in  making  Russia  appear 
as  the  aggressor,  they  hoped  possibly  to  enlist 
Italian  co-operation.  It  should  have  struck  his- 
torians as  little  short  of  amazing  that  two  of  the 
partners  in  the  Triple  Alliance  could  go  so  far 


THE  OCCASION  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR      83 

without  consulting  the  third,  and  that  in  the 
Austrian  and  German  official  papers  Italy  should 
scarcely  be  mentioned.  The  reason  for. this 
curious  and  significant  omission  was  made  plain 
by  the  statement  of  Signer  Giolitti,  the  former 
Italian  premier,  in  the  Italian  Chamber  of 
Deputies,  on  December  5,  1914.  The  Marquis 
of  San  Giuliano  referred  to  was  Minister  for 
Foreign  Affairs  in  Signer  Giolitti's  cabinet. 

"I  feel  it  my  duty  to  recall  a  precedent  show- 
ing how  correct  was  the  interpretation  of  the 
alliance  by  the  Government  when  the  conflict 
began.  During  the  Balkan  War,  on  August  9, 
1913,  being  absent  from  Rome,  I  received  the 
following  telegram  from  the  late  Marquis  di 
San  Giuliano:  'Austria  has  communicated  to  us 
and  Germany  that  it  has  been  the  intention 
to  act  against  Serbia,  defining  such  action  as 
defensive  and  hoping  for  an  application  of  a 
casus  fcederis  by  the  Triple  Alliance,  which  I 
consider  inapplicable.  I  am  trying  to  agree 
with  Germany  concerning  efforts  to  prevent 
Austrian  action,  but  it  may  be  necessary  to  say 
clearly  that  we  do  not  consider  such  eventful 
action  as  defensive,  and,  therefore,  do  not  think 
that  there  exists  a  casus  fcederis.  Please  send 
a  telegram  saying  whether  you  approve.' 

"I  answered  Marquis  di  San  Giuliano  thus: 
*  If  Austria  goes  against  Serbia,  a  casus  fcederi* 


84  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

evidently  does  not  exist.  It  is  an  action  she 
accomplished  on  her* own  account.  It  is  not 
defensive,  because  nobody  thinks  of  attacking 
her.  It  is  necessary  to  declare  this  to  Austria 
in  the  most  formal  manner,  hoping  that  Ger- 
many will  act  to  dissuade  Austria  from  a  very 
dangerous  adventure.' 

"This  was  done,  and  our  interpretation  of 
the  treaty  was  accepted  by  our  allies,  our 
friendly  relations  not  being  in  the  least  dis- 
turbed. Thus  the  declaration  of  neutrality, 
made  at  the  beginning  of  this  conflict,  is  ac- 
cording to  the  spirit  and  letter  of  the  treaties. 
I  recall  this  incident,  wishing  to  demonstrate 
the  complete  loyalty  of  Italy  before  the  eyes 
of  Europe."* 

If  this  collusion  between  the  Austrian  and 
German  cabinets  can  be  proved,  the  insincerity 
of  their  entire  procedure  is  evident,  and  it  is  no 
longer  necessary  to  consider  their  attempted 
justifications  which  were  issued  merely  in  the 
attempt  to  hoodwink  their  allies  and  a  part  of 
their  own  population. 

Let  us  see  what  actually  happened.  We 
know  from  Ambassador  Gerard,  who  was  pres- 
ent at  Kiel,  that  the  Emperor  left  hurriedly  for 
Berlin  on  June  28.  Very  shortly  after  he  sent 

*  Cf.  Stowell,  "The  Diplomacy  of  the  War  of  191V  pp.  470-1. 


THE  OCCASION  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR      85 

telegrams  to  some  of  his  ambassadors,  certainly 
to  Baron  von  Wangenheim,  at  Constantinople, 
and  in  all  probability  to  Tschirschky  at  Vienna, 
calling  them  to  a  conference  at  Potsdam  on 
July  5.  In  addition  there  were  present  Moltke, 
then  chief  of  staff,  Admiral  von  Tirpitz,  and 
some  of  the  great  bankers,  railroad  directors, 
and  captains  of  industry,  all  of  whose  services 
would  have  to  be  called  upon  in  case  of  war. 
What  happened  we  know  from  the  words  of 
Henry  Morgenthau,  formerly  United  States 
ambassador  to  Turkey: 

"Wangenheim  now  told  me  that  the  Kaiser 
solemnly  put  the  question  to  each  man  in  turn: 
Was  he  ready  for  war?  All  replied  *  Yes*  ex- 
cept the  financiers.  They  said  that  they  must 
have  two  weeks  to  sell  their  foreign  securities 
and  to  make  loans. 

"In  telling  me  about  this  conference  Wan- 
genheim, of  course,  admitted  that  Germany 
had  precipitated  the  war.  I  think  that  he  was 
rather  proud  of  the  whole  performance;  proud 
that  Germany  had  gone  about  the  matter  in 
so  methodical  and  farseeing  a  way;  especially 
proud  that  he  himself  had  been  invited  to  par- 
ticipate in  so  momentous  a  gathering.  The  sev- 
eral blue,  red,  and  yellow  books  which  flooded 
Europe  the  few  months  following  the  outbreak, 


86  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

and  the  hundreds  of  documents  which  were 
issued  by  German  propaganda  attempting  to 
establish  Germany's  innocence,  never  made 
any  impression  on  me.  For  my  conclusions  as 
to  the  responsibility  are  not  based  on  suspicions 
or  belief  or  the  study  of  circumstantial  data. 
I  do  not  have  to  reason  or  argue  about  the 
matter.  I  know."  * 

It  is  probable  that  Helfferich  and  Krupp 
von  Bohlen  were  among  those  present,  also 
that  Von  Jagow,  who  was  so  loud  in  his  protes- 
tations of  ignorance,  though  probably  not  pres- 
ent, knew  all  that  had  happened.  Helfferich 
and  Krupp  von  Bohlen  certainly  did.  This 
We  have  learned  only  recently  from  Doctor 
Miihlon,  a  man  formerly  of  the  highest  social 
and  business  standing  in  Germany,  who  up 
to  the  outbreak  of  the  war  was  a  director  in 
Krupp's.  The  dishonesty  of  the  German  pro- 
cedure, and  the  thorough  unreliability  of  the 
German  leaders  and  the  unrighteousness  of 

*"  Ambassador  Morgenthau's  Story,"  World's  Work,  June,  1918, 
pp.  170-1.  Wangenheim  told  his  friend,  the  Italian  ambassador, 
Signor  Garroni,  on  his  return  to  his  post,  July  15,  1914,  that  the  con- 
ference he  had  attended  had  decided  on  a  European  war.  When  Signor 
Garroni  asked  what  the  provocation  was  to  be,  Wangenheim  replied 
that  Austria  was  to  make  demands  on  Serbia  that  would  surely  lead  to 
war.  Signor  Garroni  reported  this  officially  to  his  government.  (Cf. 
New  York  Nation,  September  6,  1917.)  Signor  Garroni  also  informed 
Mr.  Einstein,  a  member  of  our  legation,  who  recorded  it  in  his  diary  at 
the  time.  (Cf.  London  Times,  August  4,  1917.) 


THE  OCCASION  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR      87 

their  course,  impressed  him  so  strongly  that 
he  resigned  his  position  with  Krupp's,  and  re- 
fused for  a  long  time  to  take  any  active  part 
in  what  Germany  was  doing,  except  such  as 
might  tend  toward  reconciliation  and  the  estab- 
lishment of  peace.  It  was  he  who  before  Rou- 
mania's  entrance  into  the  war  was  chosen  by 
Von  Bethmann-Hollweg  to  conduct  the  negotia- 
tions with  that  country,  which  were  to  bring 
food-supplies  into  Germany.  After  the  declara- 
tion of  unrestrained  submarine  warfare  he 
became  so  completely  out  of  sympathy  with 
the  German  cause  that  he  left  for  Switzerland, 
from  which  country,  of  his  own  accord,  he  is- 
sued the  following  statement: 

"In  the  middle  of  July,  1914,  I  had,  as  I  fre- 
quently had,  a  conversation  with  Dr.  Helfferich, 
then  director  of  the  Deutsche  Bank  in  Berlin, 
and  now  Vice-Chancellor.  The  Deutsche  Bank 
had  adopted  a  negative  attitude  toward  certain 
large  transactions  in  Bulgaria  and  Turkey,  in 
which  the  firm  of  Krupp,  for  business  reasons — 
delivery  of  material — had  a  lively  interest.  As 
one  of  the  reasons  to  justify  the  attitude  of  the 
Deutsche  Bank,  Dr.  Helfferich  gave  me  among 
others  the  following  reason: — 

"  'The  political  situation  has  become  very 
menacing.  The  Deutsche  Bank  must  in  any 


88  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

case  wait  before  entering  into  any  further  en- 
gagements abroad.  The  Austrians  have  just 
been  with  the  Kaiser.  In  a  week's  time  Vienna 
will  send  a  very  severe  ultimatum  to  Serbia, 
with  a  very  short  interval  for  the  answer.  The 
ultimatum  will  contain  demands:  such  as 
punishment  of  a  number  of  officers,  dissolution 
of  political  associations,  criminal  investigations 
in  Serbia  by  Austrian  officials,  and,  in  fact,  a 
whole  series  of  definite  satisfactions  will  be 
demanded  at  once;  otherwise  Austria-Hungary 
will  declare  war  on  Serbia.' 

"Dr.  Helfferich  added  that  the  Kaiser  had 
expressed  his  decided  approval  of  this  procedure 
on  the  part  of  Austria-Hungary.  He  had  said 
that  he  regarded  a  conflict  with  Serbia  as  an  in- 
ternal affair  between  these  two  countries,  in 
which  he  would  permit  no  other  state  to  inter- 
fere. If  Russia  mobilized,  he  would  mobilize 
also.  But  in  this  case  mobilization  meant  im- 
mediate war.  This  time  there  would  be  no 
hesitation.  Helfferich  said  that  the  Austrians 
were  extremely  well  satisfied  at  this  determined 
attitude  on  the  part  of  the  Kaiser. 

"When  I  thereupon  said  to  Dr.  Helfferich 
that  this  uncanny  communication  converted  my 
fears  of  a  world-war,  which  were  already  strong, 
into  absolute  certainty,  he  replied  that  it  cer- 
tainly looked  like  that.  But  perhaps  France 
and  Russia  would  reconsider  the  matter.  In 
any  case  the  Serbs  deserved  a  lesson  which  they 
would  remember.  This  was  the  first  intimation 
that  I  had  received  about  the  Kaiser's  discus- 


THE   OCCASION  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR      89 

sions  with  our  Allies.  I  knew  Dr.  Helfferich's 
particularly  intimate  relations  with  the  person- 
ages who  were  sure  to  be  initiated,  and  I  knew 
that  this  communication  was  trustworthy.. 

"After  my  return  from  Berlin  I  informed 
Herr  Krupp  von  Bohlen  and  Halbach,  one  of 
whose  directors  I  then  was  at  Essen.  Helf- 
ferich  had,  furthermore,  explicitly  authorized 
me  to  do  so.  At  that  time  the  intention  was 
to  make  him  a  director  of  Krupp's.  Von  Bohlen 
seemed  disturbed  that  Dr.  Helfferich  was  in 
possession  of  such  information,  and  he  made 
an  unfavorable  remark  about  the  members 
of  the  Government  who  could  not  keep  their 
mouth  shut.  He  then  told  me  the  following. 
He  said  that  he  had  himself  been  with  the 
Kaiser  in  the  last  few  days.  The  Kaiser  had 
spoken  to  him  also  of  his  conversation  with 
the  Austrians,  and  of  its  result;  but  he  had 
described  the  matter  as  so  secret  that  he 
(Krupp)  would  not  even  have  dared  to  inform 
his  own  directors.  As,  however,  I  already 
knew,  he  could  tell  me  that  Helfferich's  state- 
ments were  accurate.  Indeed,  Helfferich  seemed 
to  know  more  details  than  he  did.  He  said 
that  the  situation  was  really  very  serious.  The 
Kaiser  had  told  him  that  he  would  declare  war 
immediately  if  Russia  mobilized,  and  that  this 
time  people  would  see  that  he  did  not  turn 
about.  The  Kaiser's  repeated  insistence  that 
this  time  nobody  would  be  able  to  accuse  him 
of  indecision  had,  he  said,  been  almost  comic 
in  its  effect.  It  was  exactly  on  the  day  that 


90  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

Helfferich  had  indicated  to  me,  that  the  ulti- 
matum of  Serbia  appeared.  I  was  at  this  time 
in  Berlin,  and  I  indicated  to  Helfferich  that 
I  found  the  tone  and  the  contents  of  the  ulti- 
matum really  monstrous.  Dr.  Helfferich  re- 
plied that  this  appeared  so  only  in  the  Ger- 
man translation,  that  he  had  had  under  his 
eyes  the  ultimatum  in  French  and  that  one 
could  not  consider  it  as  at  all  exaggerated.  On 
this  occasion  Helfferich  also  told  me  that  the 
Emperor  had  undertaken  his  trip  to  the  north 
only  to  save  appearances,  that  he  had  not  given 
it  its  usual  extension,  but  that  he  had  always 
remained  sufficiently  near,  so  that  he  could 
be  reached  and  so  that  permanent  communica- 
tion could  be  maintained  with  him.  We  would 
now  have  to  see  what  would  happen.  It  was 
to  be  hoped  that  the  Austrians,  who  did  not 
expect  an  acceptance  of  the  ultimatum,  would 
act  quickly,  before  the  other  powers  had  had 
the  time  to  discuss  it.  The  Deutsche  Bank 
had  already  taken  precautions  to  meet  all 
eventualities.  It  had  ceased  to  return  to  cir- 
culation the  gold  which  came  in.  They  were 
believed  to  do  it  in  a  manner  altogether  dis- 
creet, and  this  brought  in  every  day  consider- 
able sums. 

"Immediately  after  the  ultimatum  of  Vienna 
to  Serbia,  the  German  Government  made  dec- 
larations saying  that  Austria-Hungary  had  acted 
by  itself  unknown  to  Germany.  When  we  try  to 
reconcile  these  declarations  with  the  facts  given 
above,  there  is  only  one  explanation, — that 


THE  OCCASION  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR      91 

the  Emperor  had  already  engaged  himself  with- 
out allowing  his  Government  to  collaborate,  and 
that  at  the  time  of  the  interview  with  the  Aus- 
trians  they  had  renounced  on  the  German  side  to 
agree  upon  the  text  of  the  ultimatum,  for  I  have 
already  shown  that  the  contents  of  the  ultima- 
tum was  quite  accurately  known  in  Germany. 

"Mr.  Krupp  von  Bohlen,  with  whom  I  spoke 
upon  these  lying  declarations  at  least  with  re- 
gard to  their  effect,  showed  himself  likewise 
but  little  edified  because  Germany  in  an  affair 
as  serious  ought  not  to  have  given  full  power 
to  a  state  like  Austria-Hungary.  ...  In  short, 
Mr.  von  Bohlen  considered  the  German  affirma- 
tion of  ignorance  as  a  fault  against  the  rudi- 
ments of  diplomacy,  and  he  told  me  that  he 
would  speak  in  this  regard  to  Mr.  von  Jagow, 
then  Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs, 
who  was  one  of  his  intimate  friends. 

"As  a  result  of  this  interview  Mr.  von  Bohlen 
told  me  that  Mr.  von  Jagow  had  affirmed  to 
him  again  that  he  had  not  collaborated  on  the 
text  of  the  Austro-Hungarian  ultimatum  and 
that  Germany  had  furthermore  not  formulated 
such  a  demand.  To  the  objection  that  this 
was  incomprehensible,  Mr.  von  Jagow  replied 
that  as  a  diplomat  he  had  naturally  thought 
of  asking  it,  but  at  the  moment  when  Mr.  von 
Jagow  was  called  to  give  the  matter  his  atten- 
tion, the  Emperor  had  already  engaged  him- 
self to  such  a  point  that  it  was  too  late  for  di- 
plomatic action,  and  there  was  nothing  further 
to  do.  The  situation  presented  itself  in  such  a 


92  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

way  that  one  could  no  longer  modify  the  clauses 
of  the  ultimatum.  Finally  he  (Jagow)  thought 
that  the  omission  would  also  have  its  good  side, 
that  the  good  impression  which  one  could  make 
from  the  German  side  at  St.  Petersburg  and  at 
Paris,  through  declaring  that  we  had  not  col- 
laborated in  the  Vienna  ultimatum."* 

What,  then,  was  the  understanding  with  Aus- 
tria? We  cannot  tell  exactly,  but  her  general 
intentions  are  plain  from  the  statement  made 
by  the  Austrian  ambassador  at  Constantinople 
to  our  own  ambassador. 

"The  Austrian  Ambassador,  the  Marquis 
Pallavicini,  also  practically  admitted  that  the 
Central  Powers  had  precipitated  the  war.  On 
August  18th,  Francis  Joseph's  birthday,  I  made 
the  usual  ambassadorial  visit  of  congratula- 
tion. Quite  naturally  the  conversation  turned 
upon  the  Emperor,  who  had  that  day  passed 
his  84th  year.  Pallavicini  spoke  about  him 
with  the  utmost  pride  and  veneration.  He 
told  me  how  keen-minded  and  clear-headed 
the  aged  Emperor  was,  how  he  had  the  most 
complete  understanding  of  international  af- 
fairs, and  gave  everything  his  personal  super- 
vision. To  illustrate  the  Austrian  Kaiser's 
grasp  of  public  events,  Pallavicini  instanced 
the  present  war.  The  previous  May,  Palla- 

*  Translated  from  L'Humanitf  (Paris),  Mars  26,  1917. 


THE  OCCASION  OF  THE  WORLD  WA$      93 

vicini  had  had  an  audience  with  Francis  Joseph 
in  Vienna.  At  that  time,  Pallavicini  told  me, 
the  Emperor  had  said  that  a  European  war 
was  unavoidable.  The  Central  Powers  would 
not  accept  the  Treaty  of  Bucharest  as  a  settle- 
ment of  the  Balkan  question,  and  only  a  general 
war,  the  Emperor  had  told  Pallavicini,  could 
ever  settle  that  problem.  The  Treaty  of  Bucha- 
rest, I  may  recall,  was  the  settlement  that  ended 
the  second  Balkan  war.  This  divided  the  Euro- 
pean dominions  of  the  Balkan  States,  excepting 
Constantinople  and  a  small  piece  of  adjoining 
territory,  among  the  Balkan  nations,  chiefly 
Serbia  and  Greece.  That  treaty  strengthened 
Serbia  greatly;  so  much  did  it  increase  Ser- 
bia's resources,  indeed,  that  Austria  feared 
that  it  had  laid  the  beginning  of  a  new  Euro- 
pean state  that  might  grow  sufficiently  strong 
to  resist  her  own  plans  of  aggrandizement.  Aus- 
tria held  a  large  Serbian  population  under  her 
yoke  in  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina;  these  Ser- 
bians desired,  above  everything  else,  annexa- 
tion to  their  own  country.  Moreover,  the  Pan- 
German  plans  in  the  East  necessitated  the  de- 
struction of  Serbia,  the  state,  which,  so  long 
as  it  stood  intact,  blocked  the  Germanic  road 
to  the  East.  It  had  been  the  Austro-German 
expectation  that  the  Balkan  War  would  destroy 
Serbia  as  a  nation — that  Turkey  would  simply 
annihilate  King  Peter's  forces.  This  was  pre- 
cisely what  the  Germanic  plans  demanded, 
and  for  this  reason  Austria  and  Germany  did 
nothing  to  prevent  the  Balkan  wars.  But  the 


94  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

result  was  exactly  the  reverse;  out  of  the  con- 
flict arose  a  stronger  Serbia  than  ever,  standing 
firm  like  a  breakwater  against  the  Germanic 
path.  Most  historians  agree  that  the  Treaty 
of  Bucharest  made  inevitable  this  war.  I  have 
the  Marquis  Pallavicini's  evidence  that  this 
was  likewise  the  opinion  of  Francis  Joseph  him- 
self. The  audience  at  which  the  Emperor  made 
this  statement  was  held  in  May,  more  than  a 
month  before  the  assassination  of  the  Grand 
Duke.  Clearly,  therefore,  the  war  would  have 
come  irrespective  of  the  calamity  at  Serajevo. 
That  merely  served  as  the  convenient  pretext 
for  the  war  upon  which  the  Central  Empires 
had  already  decided."* 

It  is  not  necessary  to  assume  with  the  Ger- 
man author  of  "  J' Accuse"  that  the  crown  prince 
and  General  Staff  forced  the  Kaiser  into  war. 
The  Kaiser's  remark  at  Kiel,  "It  is  a  crime 
against  Deutschtum"  is  significant,  and  to  un- 
derstand his  subsequent  course  of  action  it  is 
merely  necessary  to  remember  that  he  was  an  ir- 
responsible and  hot-headed  monarch,  who,  as 
we  have  seen  above,  was  able  to  go  ahead  with- 
out consulting  even  his  own  ministers. 

Emperor  William  II  had  been  particularly 
friendly  to  the  murdered  archduke,  Francis 

*  Henry  Morgenthau,  World's  Work,  June,  1918,  pp.  171-2. 


THE  OCCASION  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR      95 

Ferdinand;  and  to  one  hereditary  autocrat 
the  murder  of  another,  as  the  Kaiser  explained 
to  the  Czar  in  his  telegram  of  July  28,  is  a  seri- 
ous matter.  It  is,  furthermore,  more  than  prob- 
able that  after  the  Austrian  attempt  against 
Serbia  in  1913,  and  with  Franz  Joseph's  dis- 
position, as  revealed  by  Pallavicini,  the  Central 
Powers  had  already  planned  aggressive  action 
in  the  Balkans,  and  were  merely  waiting  for 
an  occasion.  Indeed,  the  Kaiser  and  Francis 
Ferdinand  had  had  a  meeting  at  Konapisht 
less  than  a  month  before  the  tragedy  of  Sera- 
jevo,  and  it  is  likely  that  the  archduke's  fatal 
journey  had  some  connection  with  important 
plans  in  the  interest  of  Deutschtum.  That  con- 
ference, which  has  often  been  overlooked,  is 
probably  crucial  in  the  history  of  the  war.  What 
happened  there  is  now  known  only  to  William 
II,  but  it  is  well  to  ponder  carefully  the  state- 
ment of  Savic,  who  says:  "At  this  fatal  meeting 
a  compact  was  entered  into,  under  which  the 
map  of  Central  Europe  was  to  be  transformed 
and  the  peace  of  the  world  was  doomed."  * 

*  V.  R.  Savic,  "Southwestern  Europe,"  p.  111.  Prince  Lichnowsky 
refers  to  the  conference  at  Konapisht  as  something  unquestioned.  See 
his  statement  below. 


96  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

This  would  explain  the  Kaiser's  remark  at  Kiel 
after  the  murder  of  Francis  Ferdinand  that  it 
meant  not  only  the  death  of  a  friend  and 
prospective  allied  ruler  (Francis  Joseph  was 
nearly  eighty-four),  but  the  endangering  of 
whatever  plans  had  been  made. 

The  Kaiser  had  already  shown  to  what  a 
degree  of  belligerency  he  could  be  moved  at 
the  time  of  the  expedition  to  China.  He  re- 
turned to  Berlin  from  Kiel  in  much  the  same 
frame  of  mind.  Serbia  must  be  chastised  in 
the  interests 'of  Deutschtum,  even  if,  as  seemed 
probable,  Russia  and  France  should  be  drawn 
in — for  if  there  were  to  be  war  only  against 
Serbia  there  was  no  need  of  the  Potsdam  war 
conference  at  all. 

Germany  was  ready.  There  is  a  German 
proverb:  When  you  want  to  hang  a  dog  you 
can  always  find  a  rope  with  which  to  hang  him. 
The  assassination  of  the  archduke  was  to  be 
used  for  the  execution  of  Serbia,  for  which 
preparations  had  already  been  under  way. 
The  unusual  military  measures  taken  by  Ger- 
many before  June,  1914,  her  buying  of  hospital 
and  munition  supplies,  her  embargo  on  the 


THE  OCCASION  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR      97 

shipment  of  pneumatic  tires,  etc.,  tend  to  con- 
firm this.* 

But  in  spite  of  the  seeming  clearness  of  the 
evidence  historians  should  be  critical  of  the 
intentions  attributed  by  belligerents  to  their 
enemies  especially  in  this  most  crucial  matter 
of  the  responsibility  for  the  war.  No  question 
at  issue  can  interest  us  Americans,  lovers  of 
peace,  more  deeply  than  this  or  have  more 
serious  bearing  on  our  plans  for  the  future 
and  that  world  peace  which  from  the  first  our 
country  and  our  President  have  desired. 

We  have  seen  how  German  and  Austrian 
ambassadors  like  Wangenheim  and  Pallavicini, 
in  the  early  days  of  what  promised  to  be  for 
them  a  successful  war,  gloried  in  the  fact  that 
their  countries  had  provoked  it.  Perhaps, 
however,  their  patriotism  led  them  to  give  their 
countries  credit  which  they  did  not  deserve. 
Some  years  have  now  intervened  and  the  time 
has  come  when  we  can  consult  other  wings  of 
responsible  and  informed  opinion  in  Germany. 

Let  us  consider  first  the  final  conclusions  of 
Doctor  Miihlon,  whose  position  in  the  social 

*  "Le  Mensonge  du  3  Aodt,"  p.  9. 


98  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

and  industrial  world  brought  him  close  to  the 
leaders  of  Germany.  It  was  not  one  at  which 
he  arrived  hastily  or  through  any  personal  pique, 
and  he  gave  it  of  his  own  motion  to  the  Journal 
de  Geneve,  where  it  appeared  on  May  2,  1917. 

"The  essential  points  of  my  statement  have 
been  known  for  a  long  time,  and  the  German 
government  has  not  denied  them.  They  are: 

"I.  That,  according  to  the  German  point 
of  view,  Austria-Hungary  was  to  chastise  Ser- 
bia without  a  third  power  having  the  right  to 
intervene. 

"II.  That  the  Russian  mobilization  would 
have  as  its  immediate  consequence  the  declara- 
tion of  war  of  Germany.  .  .  . 

''What  is  perhaps  new  in  my  statement  is 
that  I  show  that  the  attitude  of  the  Emperor 
in  person  was  resolutely  fixed  in  the  direction 
of  the  two  points  of  view  mentioned  above. 
Whoever  was  familiar  at  that  time  with  cir- 
cumstances in  Germany  could  not  doubt  that 
the  Emperor  in  person  would  take  a  strong 
stand  on  the  question.  .  .  . 

"The  facts  alone  are  important.  Mobiliza- 
tion did  not  necessarily  mean  war,  and  the 
Austrians  knew  it  better  than  anyone,  they  who 
were  used  to  long  mobilizations  that  did  not 
imply  war. 

"There  may  have  been  in  this  world  war  a 
considerable  number  who  were  guilty  in  the 


THE  OCCASION  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR      99 

broad  sense  of  the  word,  and  for  a  long  time 
back,  but  of  guilty  persons  in  the  strict  sense 
of  the  word,  there  is  only  a  small  number,  and 
when  we  consider  the  events  recounted,  we 
see  that  they  were  orly  in  Berlin  and  Vienna." 


The  surest  measure  of  the  sincerity  of  a 
man's  views  is  his  willingness  to  suffer  for  them. 
Doctor  Mtihlon  voluntarily  gave  up  his  dis- 
tinguished position  and  his  native  land  and 
removed  to  Switzerland  in  order  to  be  free  to 
speak  the  truth  as  he  knew  it.  Of  his  sincerity 
there  can,  therefore,  be  no  doubt.  But  some 
one  may  say,  he  may,  in  spite  of  his  connec- 
tions, not  have  been  well  informed. 

Before,  therefore,  finally  making  the  most 
serious  accusations  against  Germany  and  tax- 
ing her  with  bad  faith  in  her  diplomacy  and 
with  the  responsibility  for  the  greatest  war  in 
history,  let  us  call  up,  even  at  the  risk  of 
appearing  tedious,  one  last  witness  of  whose 
competence  there  can  be  no  question.  Prince 
Lichnowsky  was  the  German  ambassador  in 
England  from  1912  to  the  outbreak  of  the  war, 
and  he  therefore  held  one  of  the  most  important 
diplomatic  posts  of  his  country.  His  testimony 


100  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

is  the  more  impressive,  since  he  wrote  not  for 
his  own  time  but  sought  to  set  down  for  his 
family  archives  a  record  that  would  be  read 
and  scrutinized  in  the  light  of  all  the  facts 
by  men  who  would  call  these  times  ancient. 
Through  the  indiscretion  or  treachery  of  an 
acquaintance  they  were  published  prematurely 
and  their  author  acknowledged  them.  ;  We  re- 
print the  sections  that  bear  most  directly  on 
this  momentous  question. 

"On  board  the  Meteor  we  learned  of  the 
death  of  the  archducal  heir  to  the  throne.  His 
Majesty  regretted  that  his  efforts  to  win  that 
prince's  support  for  his  ideas  had  thus  been 
rendered  vain.  Whether  the  plan  of  an  active 
policy  against  Serbia  had  already  been  decided  on 
at  Konopischt,  I  am  not  in  a  position  to  know. 

"As  I  was  not  kept  posted  regarding  views 
and  proceedings  in  Vienna,  I  did  not  attach 
very  great  importance  to  this  event.  All  that 
I  could  ascertain  later  was  that  among  Austrian 
aristocrats  a  feeling  of  relief  outweighed  other 
sentiments.  On  board  the  Meteor,  also  as  a 
guest  of  His  Majesty,  was  an  Austrian,  Count 
Felix  Thun.  In  spite  of  the  splendid  weather, 
he  had  remained  in  his  cabin  all  the  time,  suf- 
fering from  sea-sickness.  After  receiving  the 
news,  however,  he  was  well.  Alarm  or  joy  had 
cured  him. 


THE  OCCASION  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR    101 

"Subsequently  I  learned  that,  at  the  decisive 
conference  at  Potsdam  on  July  5th,  the  Vienna 
inquiry  received  the  unqualified  assent  of  all 
the  controlling  authorities,  with  the  further 
suggestion  that  it  would  not  be  a  bad  thing  if 
war  with  Russia  should  result.  At  least  this 
statement  was  made  in  the  Austrian  protocol 
which  Count  Mensdorff  (Austrian  ambassador) 
received  in  London.  .  .  . 

"It  would,  of  course,  have  required  only  a 
hint  from  Berlin  to  induce  Count  Berchtold  to 
content  himself  with  a  diplomatic  success  and 
quietly  accept  the  Serbian  answer.  This  hint, 
however,  was  not  given.  On  the  contrary, 
pressure  was  exercised  in  favor  of  war.  It 
would  have  been  so  fine  a  success. 

"After  our  refusal  Sir  Edward  Grey  begged 
us  to  come  forward  with  a  proposal  of  our  own. 
We  insisted  on  war. 

"The  impression  grew  continually  stronger 
that  we  desired  war  under  any  circumstances. 
In  no  other  way  was  it  possible  to  interpret  our 
attitude  on  a  question  which,  after  all,  did  not 
directly  concern  us.  The  urgent  requests  and 
explicit  declarations  of  M.  Sazonof,  followed  by 
the  Czar's  positively  humble  telegrams;  the  re- 
peated proposals  of  Sir  Edward  Grey;  the  warn- 
ings of  Marquis  di  San  Giuliano  and  of  Signer 
Bollati;  my  own  urgent  counsels — all  were  of 
no  avail.  Berlin  would  not  budge;  Serbia  must 
be  massacred.  .  .  . 

"Soon  after  this  events  were  precipitated. 
Until  this  time,  following  the  directions  he  re- 


102  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

ceived  from  Berlin,  Count  Berchtold  had  played 
the  part  of  the  strong  man.  When  at  last  he 
decided  to  change  his  course,  and  after  Russia 
had  negotiated  and  waited  a  whole  week  in 
vain,  we  answered  the  Russian  mobilization 
with  the  ultimatum  and  the  declaration  of 
war.  .  .  . 

"It  is  shown  by  all  official  publications  and 
is  not  disproved  by  our  White  Book,  which, 
owing  to  the  poverty  of  its  contents  and  to  its 
omissions,  constitutes  a  grave  indictment  against 
ourselves,  that: 

"  1.  We  encouraged  Count  Berchtold  to  at- 
tack Serbia,  although  no  German  interest  was 
involved,  and  the  danger  of  a  World  War  must 
have  been  known  to  us.  Whether  we  were 
acquainted  with  the  wording  of  the  ultimatum 
is  completely  immaterial. 

"2.  During  the  period  between  the  23d  and 
the  30th  of  July,  1914,  when  M.  Sazonof  em- 
phatically declared  that  he  could  not  tolerate 
an  attack  on  Serbia,  we  rejected  the  British 
proposals  of  mediation,  although  Serbia,  under 
Russian  and  British  pressure,  had  accepted  al- 
most the  whole  of  the  ultimatum,  and  although 
an  agreement  about  the  two  points  at  issue 
could  easily  have  been  reached  and  Count  Berch- 
told was  even  prepared  to  content  himself  with 
the  Serbian  reply. 

"3.  On  the  30th  of  July,  when  Count  Berch- 
told showed  a  disposition  to  change  his  course, 
we  sent  an  ultimatum  to  St.  Petersburg  merely 
because  of  the  Russian  mobilization,  and  though 


THE  OCCASION  OF  THE  WORLD  WAR    103 

Austria  had  not  been  attacked;  and  on  the  31st 
of  July  we  declared  war  against  the  Russians, 
although  the  Czar  pledged  his  word  that  he 
would  not  permit  a  single  man  to  march  as 
long  as  negotiations  were  still  going  on.  Thus 
we  deliberately  destroyed  the  possibility  of  a 
peaceful  settlement. 

"In  view  of  these  incontestable  facts,  it  is  no 
wonder  that  the  whole  civilized  world  outside 
of  Germany  places  the  sole  responsibility  for 
the  World  War  upon  our  shoulders."1 

In  this  spirit  the  rulers  of  Germany,  the 
Kaiser  and  the  military  party,  were  acting,  and 
in  accordance  with  it  the  Imperial  German 
Chancellor,  on  August  1,  1914,  instructed  the 
German  ambassador  at  Petrograd  to  submit  a 
statement  which,  after  attributing  all  the  blame 
to  Russia,  declared  a  state  of  war  with  that 
country. 

On  the  3d  of  August  Baron  von  Schoen,  Ger- 
man ambassador  at  Paris,  submitted  a  declara- 
tion of  war  against  France,f  also  alleging  that 
French  aviators  had  violated  Belgian  territory 
(this  to  prepare  the  world  for  the  German  inva- 
sion), and  that  one  of  them  had  tried  to  de- 

*  American  Association  for  International  Conciliation,   "  The  Dis- 
closures from  Germany,"  June,  1918,  pp.  321-343. 
t  "French  Yellow  Book,"  No.  147. 


104  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

stroy  establishments  near  Wesel.  (The  instruc- 
tions from  Berlin  to  Schoen  had  made  this  more 
definite  and  plausible,  and  had  ordered  him 
to  say  that  this  aviator  had  been  shot  down 
at  the  railroad-station*  at  Wesel !)  This  state- 
ment could  have  been  very  easily  verified  by  a 
photograph,  the  name  of  the  aviator,  who  must 
have  been  either  killed  or  captured,  or  by  the 
wrecked  aeroplane.  France  denied  it  categori- 
cally and  has  proved  it  untrue.  Schoen's 
statement  further  alleged  that  another  had 
dropped  bombs  on  the  railroad  near  Karlsruhe 
and  Nuremberg.  This  statement,  after  circulat- 
ing for  two  years,  was  denied  by  the  municipal 
authorities  of  Nuremberg  in  the  following  terms: 

"The  commandant  ad  interim  of  the  III  Ba- 
varian Army  Corps  has  no  knowledge  that  on 
the  railroad  Nuremberg-Kissengen  and  Nurem- 
berg-Ansbach  before  or  after  the  outbreak  of 
war  bombs  by  enemy  aviators  were  ever  dropped. 
All  statements  and  newspaper  reports  in  this 
connection  have  proved  themselves  false."* 

After  oblique  diplomacy  a  lying  declaration 
of  war.  This  was  Germany's  course.  But  the 

*  Cf.  "Le  Mensonge  du  3  Aotit,"  pp.  123-242. 


THE  OCCASION  OF  THE  WORLD   WAR     105 

false  statements  could  not  be  immediately 
controlled.  Some  of  the  German  statesmen 
themselves  may  have  believed  them  at  the 
time.  In  any  case  it  was  thought  that  the  war 
would  be  over  before  they  could  be  disproved, 
and  that  success  which,  in  Von  Moltke's  phrase, 
"alone  justifies  war,"  would  make  later  discus- 
sion superfluous.  By  her  disingenuous  attempt 
to  make  Russia  and  France  appear  the  aggres- 
sors, we  have  seen  that  Germany  had  hoped  to 
bring  Italy  to  her  side,  and  induce  England  to 
remain  neutral.  In  both  these  attempts  she 
failed.  She  did  succeed,  however,  in  uniting 
her  population  and  bringing  all  classes  enthusi- 
astically into  the  war. 

It  was  after  this  fashion,  therefore,  that  in 
the  language  of  .William  II,  "the  sword  had  been 
forced"  into  his  hand. 


CHAPTER  IV 
STRICT  NEUTRALITY 

*TN  the  wars  of  the  European  Powers  in 
-•-  matters  relating  to  themselves  we  have 
never  taken  any  part,  nor  does  it  comport  with 
our  policy  to  do  so."  These  words  in  President 
Monroe's  historic  message  of  December  2,  1823, 
had  become  by  1914  a  national  habit  of  thought. 
It  was  inevitable,  therefore,  that  when  the 
Powers  of  Europe  were  declaring  war  upon  each 
other  we  should  have  taken  our  stand  on  the 
basis  of  old  principles.  We  were  bewildered 
and  confused.  The  affairs  in  the  Balkans  had 
interested  us  but  little.  There  had,  to  be  sure, 
been  rumors  of  war,  but  we  had  not  believed 
that  war  would  really  come.  We  were  too  lit- 
tle acquainted  with  the  new  Prussia,  and  too 
much  under  the  spell  of  the  old  Germany  to  be 
able  to  believe  that  any  nation  in  these  days 
would  deliberately  provoke  war.  To  us  it 
seemed  at  first  like  a  force  of  nature,  a  cata- 

106 


STRICT  NEUTRALITY  107 

clysm.  It  is  with  nations  as  with  individuals; 
in  a  sudden  crisis  they  decide  on  the  principle  of 
their  former  reiterated  decisions — on  their  prece- 
dents. Accordingly,  on  August  4,  1914,  Presi- 
dent Wilson  proclaimed  America  neutral  in  the 
war  between  Austria  and  Serbia,  Germany  and 
Russia,  and  Germany  and  France.  Similar 
proclamations  of  neutrality  were  to  be  made  as 
other  nations  entered  the  war,  and  the  word 
"neutrality'*  was  to  characterize  our  attitude 
to  the  date  of  our  own  entrance  into  the  conflict. 
Our  policy  was,  therefore,  in  every  sense  in 
full  accord  with  our  history.  We  had  promptly 
assumed  the  attitude  which  Washington  and  his 
advisers  had  formulated  in  the  wars  of  the 
French  Revolution.  "This  policy  of  1793,"  in 
the  opinion  of  a  distinguished  English  authority, 
"constitutes  an  epoch  in  the  development  of 
the  usages  of  neutrality."  It  represents  the 
most  advanced  existing  opinions  of  what  neu- 
tral obligations  were,  and  "in  some  points  it 
went  further  than  authoritative  international 
custom  has  up  to  the  present  time  advanced." 

*  Hall's  "International  Law,"  4th  edition,  1895,  p.  616;  quoted  by 
James  Brown  Scott,  "A  Survey  of  International  Relations  Between  the 
United  States  and  Germany,"  p.  45. 


108  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

The  Monroe  Doctrine  made  it  natural  that 
we  should  revert  to  this  policy,  and  our  neu- 
trality was,  therefore,  not  something  new, 
strange,  or  unfamiliar  to  the  nations.  It  was 
the  conscientious  policy  of  Washington,  with 
such  additions  as  subsequent  experience  had 
suggested.  It  was,  as  James  Scott  Brown 
clearly  describes  it,  "the  neutrality  which  rec- 
ognized belligerent  duties  as  well  as  neutral 
rights,  and  which,  by  apt  laws,  sought  to  pre- 
vent assaults  upon  neutral  rights  and  to  compel 
the  performance  of  neutral  duties."  * 

Yet  it  was  not  to  be  a  purely  passive  neu- 
trality. It  was  to  be,  if  we  dare  put  it  para- 
doxically, a  neutrality  benevolent  to  both  sides. 
For  we  imagined  that,  like  ourselves,  the  belliger- 
ents, too,  looked  upon  war  as  a  great  calamity 
and  that  all  parties  would  welcome  serious  effort 
on  our  part  to  bring  back  peace  and  justice. 
Until  we  ourselves  were  forced  into  the  conflict, 
this  was  to  be  the  aim  of  our  government. 
The  proposal  for  a  world  peace  offered  by  Presi- 
dent Wilson  on  January  22,  1917,  was  the  last 
act  in  a  policy  which  he  had  doubtless  had  in 

*J.  B.  Scott,  "A  Survey  of  International  Relations  Between  the 
United  States  and  Germany,"  p.  45. 


STRICT  NEUTRALITY  109 

mind  from  the  outset.  For  this  reason,  on 
August  19,  1914,  he  issued  to  the  American 
people  the  following  proclamation: 

"My  fellow  countrymen:  I  suppose  that 
every  thoughtful  man  in  America  has  asked 
himself,  during  these  last  troubled  weeks,  what 
influence  the  European  War  may  exert  upon 
the  United  States,  and  I  take  the  liberty  of  ad- 
dressing a  few  words  to  you  in  order  to  point 
out  that  it  is  entirely  within  our  own  choice 
what  its  effects  upon  us  will  be,  and  to  urge 
very  earnestly  upon  you  the  sort  of  speech  and 
conduct  which  will  best  safeguard  the  nation 
against  distress  and  disaster. 

"The  effect  of  the  war  upon  the  United  States 
will  depend  upon  what  American  citizens  say 
and  do.  Every  man  who  really  loves  America 
will  act  and  speak  in  the  true  spirit  of  neutral- 
ity, which  is  the  spirit  of  impartiality  and  fair- 
ness and  friendliness  to  all  concerned.  The 
spirit  of  the  nation  in  this  critical  matter  will  be 
determined  largely  by  what  individuals  and 
society  and  those  gathered  in  public  meetings 
do  and  say,  upon  what  newspapers  and  maga- 
zines contain,  upon  what  ministers  utter  in 
their  pulpits,  and  men  proclaim  as  their  opinions 
on  the  street. 

"The  people  of  the  United  States  are  drawn' 
from  many  nations,  and  chiefly  from  the  na- 
tions now  at  war.     It  is  natural  and  inevitable 
that  there  should  be  the  utmost  variety  of  sym- 
pathy and  desire  among  them  with  regard  to 


110  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

the  issues  and  circumstances  of  the  conflict. 
Some  will  wish  one  nation,  others  another,  to 
succeed  in  the  momentous  struggle.  It  will  be 
easy  to  excite  passion  and  difficult  to  allay  it. 
Those  responsible  for  exciting  it  will  assume  a 
heavy  responsibility,  responsibility  for  no  less 
a  thing  than  that  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  whose  love  of  their  country  and  whose 
loyalty  to  its  government  should  unite  them  as 
Americans  all,  bound  in  honor  and  affection  to 
think  first  of  her  and  her  interests,  may  be 
divided  in  camps  of  hostile  opinion,  hot  against 
each  other,  involved  in  the  war  itself  in  impulse 
and  opinion  if  not  in  action. 

"Such  divisions  among  us  would  be  fatal  to 
our  peace  of  mind  and  might  seriously  stand 
in  the  way  of  the  proper  performance  of  our  duty 
as  the  one  great  nation  at  peace,  the  one  people 
holding  itself  ready  to  play  a  part  of  impartial 
mediation  and  speak  the  counsels  of  peace  and 
accommodation,,  not  as  a  partisan,  but  as  a  friend. 

"I  venture,  therefore,  my  fellow  countrymen, 
to  speak  a  solemn  word  of  warning  to  you  against 
that  deepest,  most  subtle,  most  essential  breach 
of  neutrality  which  may  spring  out  of  partisan- 
ship, out  of  passionately  taking  sides.  The 
United  States  must  be  neutral  in  fact  as  well  as 
in  name  during  these  days  that  are  to  try  men's 
souls.  We  must  be  impartial  in  thought  as 
well  as  in  action,  must  put  a  curb  upon  our 
sentiments  as  well  as  upon  every  transaction 
that  might  be  construed  as  a  preference  of  one 
party  to  the  struggle  before  another. 

"My  thought  is  of  America.     I  am  speaking, 


STRICT  NEUTRALITY  111 

I  feel  sure,  the  earnest  wish  and  purpose  of 
every  thoughtful  American  that  this  great 
country  of  ours,  which  is,  of  course,  the  first  in 
our  thoughts  and  in  our  hearts,  should  show 
herself  in  this  time  of  peculiar  trial  a  nation  fit 
beyond  others  to  exhibit  the  fine  poise  of  undis- 
turbed judgment,  the  dignity  of  self-control,  the 
efficiency  of  dispassionate  action ;  a  nation  that 
neither  sits  in  judgment  upon  others  nor  is  dis- 
turbed in  her  own  counsels  and  which  keeps 
herself  fit  and  free  to  do  what  is  honest  and  dis- 
interested and  truly  serviceable  for  the  peace 
of  the  world. 

"Shall  we  not  resolve  to  put  upon  ourselves 
the  restraints  which  will  bring  to  our  people 
the  happiness  and  the  great  and  lasting  influence 
for  peace  we  covet  for  them  ?"* 

It  is  important  for  those  who  would  under- 
stand the  steps  which  brought  the  war  to  our 
doors  to  remember  this  initial  act  of  our  Presi- 
dent. America,  in  the  interest  of  all,  was  to  be 
the  peacemaker.  Nothing  could  have  better 
shown  our  friendly  disposition  toward  all  parties 

*This  proclamation  was  evidently  issued  after  careful  reflection  on 
our  relations  to  the  World  War  in  general.  Belgium  had  already  been 
invaded  and  the  German  chancellor  had  announced  the  violation  of 
the  treaty  guaranteeing  Belgium's  neutrality.  It  would  appear  as  if  this 
had  at  first  given  us  pause,  for  our  proclamations  declaring  neutrality 
between  various  belligerents  were  dated  as  follows:  Austria-Hungary 
and  Serbia,  Germany  and  Russia,  Germany  and  France,  August  4;  Ger- 
many and  Great  Britain,  August  5;  Austria-Hungary  and  Russia,  Au- 
gust 7;  Great  Britain  and  Austria-Hungary,  August  13;  France  and 


112  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

to  the  conflict.  No  one  could  have  been  more 
determined  to  keep  our  own  country  at  peace 
than  were  the  representatives  of  the  American 
people  in  1914.  The  policy  they  had  outlined 
was  to  be  maintained  with  strictest  impartiality 
on  our  part,  and  if  we  were  finally  forced  to  sur- 
render it,  it  was  through  no  will  of  our  own.  It 
was  to  become  plain,  month  by  month,  that 
against  a  belligerent  like  Germany  an  attitude  of 
neutrality  in  the  interest  of  a  general  world  peace 
was  impossible.  Never  from  the  first  had  she 
any  intention  of  respecting  our  rights  and  sover- 
eignty any  more  than  she  respected  Belgium's. 
Slowly,  and  against  his  will,  the  President  was 
therefore  to  become  convinced  of  this  until 
on  April  2,  1917,  he  was  compelled  by  the  evi- 
dence to  reach  the  following  conclusion : 

"One  of  the  things  that  have  served  to  con- 
vince us  that  the  Prussian  autocracy  was  not 

Austria-Hungary,  August  14;  Belgium  and  Germany  (where  the  first 
blows  in  the  war  had  been  struck  in  the  west),  August  18.  The  delay  in 
this  latest  declaration  may  be  due  to  accident.  To  us  it  seems  more 
probable  that  after  consideration  of  the  fact  that  we  were  not  parties 
to  the  violated  treaty,  Washington  decided  to  pursue  steadily  the  policy 
of  non-interference  in  European  matters.  The  following  day  President 
Wilson's  announcement  to  the  American  people  was  presented  in  the 
Senate,  and  ordered  printed.  Cf.  American  Journal  of  International 
Law,  Special  Supplement,  July,  1915,  pp.  194-200. 


STRICT  NEUTRALITY  113 

and  could  never  be  our  friend  is  that  from  the 
very  outset  of  the  present  war  it  has  filled  our 
unsuspecting  communities  and  even  our  offices 
of  Government  with  spies  and  set  criminal  in- 
trigues everywhere  afoot  against  our  national 
unity  of  council,  our  peace  within  and  without, 
our  industries  and  our  commerce. 

"Indeed,  it  is  now  evident  that  its  spies  were 
here  even  before  the  war  began,  and  it  is,  un- 
happily, not  a  matter  of  conjecture,  but  a  fact 
proved  in  our  courts  of  justice,  that  the  intrigues 
which  have  more  than  once  come  perilously 
near  to  disturbing  the  peace  and  dislocating  the 
industries  of  the  country  have  been  carried  on 
at  the  instigation,  with  the  support,  and  even 
under  the  personal  direction,  of  official  agents 
of  the  Imperial  German  Government  accredited 
to  the  Government  of  the  United  States.'** 

Not  until  the  declaration  of  war,  however,  did 
the  President  or  his  advisers  permit  the  govern- 
ment to  depart  in  the  slightest  from  the  course 
formulated,  a  course  of  implied  and  frequently 
expressed  good-will  and  friendship  to  Germany. 
The  government  was  to  cling  desperately  to  this 
policy  long  after  a  great  part  of  the  American 
people  recognized  it  as  impossible.  Indeed  it 
was  plain  to  most  Americans  that  after  what  had 

*  A  detailed  account  of  the  violations  of  American  rights  by  German 
spies  and  German  agents  will  be  found  in  Chapter  VIII. 


114  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

happened  in  Belgium,  it  was  useless  to  ask  in- 
dividuals to  be  neutral  in  "thought  and  opinion " 
toward  a  Power  which  was  overriding  all  con- 
siderations of  law  and  humanity.  But  this 
attitude  of  neutrality  of  thought  which  the 
President  had  enjoined  upon  us  was  neither 
necessary  nor  was  it  expected  of  us  even  by 
Germany.  For  the  German  conception  had 
been  officially  defined  in  her  war  manual. 

"It  is  here  assumed  that  neutrality  is  not  to 
be  regarded  as  synonymous  with  indifference 
and  impartiality  with  regard  to  the  belligerent 
parties  and  the  continuance  of  the  war.  As  to 
the  expression  'partisanship/  neutral  states  can 
only  be  expected  to  observe  international  cour- 
tesies; as  long  as  these  are  observed,  there  is 
no  reason  to  interfere." 

These  international  courtesies  were  observed 
to  the  letter  with  regard  to  Germany  even  more 
than  with  regard  to  England.  As  we  look 
back,  it  is  interesting  to  note  the  difference  in 
our  tone,  and  occasionally,  indeed,  in  our  atti- 
tude, toward  England  and  toward  Germany. 
It  would  almost  seem  as  if  the  government  had 
expected  violations  of  international  law  from 

*  Kriegsbrauch  im  Landkriege,  Berlin,  1902,  p.  69. 


STRICT  NEUTRALITY  115 

Britain  and  a  speedy  and  willing  compliance 
from  Prussia.* 

Nothing  illustrates  this  better  than  our  corre- 
spondence with  England  with  regard  to  lists  of 
contraband  at  a  time  when  we  failed  to  protest 
to  Germany  against  so  flagrant  an  offense  as 
that  which  the  German  Embassy  committed  in 
inserting  in  New  York  papers  the  notice  warn- 
ing American  citizens  not  to  take  ship  on  the 
Lusitania ;  so  serious  an  interference  in  our 
rights  that  it  would  have  justified  our  govern- 
ment in  immediately  handing  Count  von  Bern- 
storff  his  passports. 

To  understand  the  discussions  with  England 
we  must  remember  that  the  Hague  Conferences 
had  fixed  no  lists  of  contraband  to  which  all  the 
Powers  would  agree.  Such  an  attempt  had  been 
made  in  the  Declaration  of  London,  in  1908-9, 
but  had  not  at  the  outbreak  of  the  present  war 
been  ratified  by  a  sufficient  number  of  bellig- 
erent Powers  to  be  reckoned  a  part  of  the  ac- 

*  It  is  merely  necessary  to  call  the  reader's  attention  to  Washington's 
insistence  on  the  "ancient  friendship  between  their  people  and  our 
own"  in  the  President's  Address  to  Congress,  announcing  the  severance 
of  diplomatic  relations  on  February  3,  1917.  Phrases  of  like  purport 
are  found  in  the  notes  after  the  Lusitania  and  Sussex  sinkings.  No  such 
special  considerations  are  urged  in  our  notes  to  England,  and  they 
appear  curt  in  comparison. 


116  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

cepted  law  of  nations.  Our  State  Department 
on  August  6,  1914,  however,  had  proposed  to  the 
belligerents  that  this  declaration  be  accepted. 
Whether  they  would  do  so  or  not  was  a  matter 
of  choice,  and  as  France,  Russia,  and  Great 
Britain  suggested  modifications,  the  proposal 
was  withdrawn  by  us  on  October  22,  1914,  and 
we  fell  back  on  our  own  treaties  and  the  rules  of 
International  Law.*  The  question  of  what  con- 
stitutes contraband  was  in  the  absence  of  any 
such  general  agreement  a  "matter  for  discus- 
sion, though  we  could  hardly  claim  as  neutrals 
what  we  had  denied  to  other  neutrals  when  we 
ourselves  had  been  belligerents. 

In  President  Lincoln's  Proclamations  of  June 
13  and  24,  1865,  he  had  listed  as  contraband 
"all  articles  from  which  ammunition  is  manu- 
factured," and  Secretary  of  State  Hay,  at  the 
time  of  the  Boxer  troubles  had  included  both 
copper  and  raw  cotton  as  among  such  articles,  f 
In  spite  of  this,  however,  the  United  States  re^ 
fused  to  acquiesce  in  Great  Britain's  treatment 

*  American  Journal  of  International  Law,  Special  Supplement,  July, 
1915,  pp.  7-8. 

t  Telegram  to  Mr.  Rockhill,  American  commissioner,  March  19, 1901. 
This  whole  question  of  contraband  is  thoroughly  discussed  by  Scott  in 
"A  Survey  of  International  Relations,"  pp.  74-105. 


STRICT  NEUTRALITY  117 

of  copper  shipments  as  contraband,  and  Secre- 
tary of  State  Bryan  was  compelled  frankly  to 
admit  the  awkwardness  of  the  situation  in  his 
letter  to  Senator  Stone  of  January  8,  1915. 

"The  United  States  has  now  under  considera- 
tion the  question  of  the  right  of  a  belligerent  to 
include  *  copper  unwrought'  in  its  list  of  absolute 
contraband  instead  of  in  its  list  of  conditional 
contraband.  As  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  has  in  the  past  placed  'all  articles  from 
which  ammunition  is  manufactured*  in  its  con- 
traband list,  and  has  declared  copper  to  be 
among  such  materials,  it  necessarily  finds  some 
embarrassment  in  dealing  with  the  subject. 

"Moreover,  there  is  no  instance  of  the  United 
States  acquiescing  in  Great  Britain's  seizure  of 
copper  shipments.  In  every  case  in  which  it  had 
been  done  vigorous  representations  have  been  made 
to  the  British  Government^  and  the  representatives 
of  the  United  States  have  pressed  for  the  release  of 
the  shipments"  * 

Neither  in  this  matter  of  contraband  nor  in 
any  other  did  we  make  the  slightest  concession 
to  England.  Her  request  that  Canadian  soldiers 
who  were  returning  from  Europe,  and  who, 
whether  owing  to  wounds  or  otherwise,  had  been 
discharged  as  unfit  for  further  service,  be  al- 

*  Am.  Jour.  Inter.  Law,  Special  Supplement,  July,  1915,  p.  258. 


118  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

lowed  to  pass  through  the  State  of  Maine  on 
their  way  home  from  Saint  John's,  New  Bruns- 
wick, was  denied,  although  it  might  have  been 
granted  without  impropriety. 

In  contrast  with  this  scrupulous  insistence 
on  our  rights  with  England,  when  the  German 
Embassy  had  been  guilty  of  a  capital  breach 
of  international  decorum,  to  say  the  least,  the 
Secretary  of  State,*  took  no  action  at  the  time 
and  referred  to  it  only  with  "regret"  in  the 
first  Lusitania  note,  to  call  attention  to  the 
fact  that  such  a  warning  could  not  be  considered 
as  an  excuse  in  the  following  terms: 

"There  was  recently  published  in  the  news- 
papers of  the  United  States,  I  regret  to  inform 
the  Imperial  German  Government,  a  formal 
warning,  purporting  to  come  from  the  Imperial 
German  Embassy  at  Washington,  addressed 
to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  stating, 
in  effect,  that  any  citizen  of  the  United  States 
who  exercised  his  right  of  free  travel  upon  the 
seas  would  do  so  at  his  peril  if  his  journey  should 
take  him  within  the  zone  of  waters  within  which 
the  Imperial  German  Navy  was  using  sub- 
marines against  the  Commerce  of  Great  Brit- 
ain and  France,  notwithstanding  the  respectful 

*  It  is  generally  assumed  that  this  note  was  written  by  President 
Wilson. 


STRICT  NEUTRALITY  119 

but  very  earnest  protest  of  his  Government, 
the  Government  of  the  United  States.  I  do 
not  refer  to  this  for  the  purpose  of  calling  the 
attention  of  the  Imperial  German  Government 
at  this  time*  to  the  surprising  irregularity  of 
a  communication  from  the  Imperial  German 
Embassy  at  Washington  addressed  to  the 
people  of  the  United  States  through  the  news- 
papers, but  only  for  the  purpose  of  pointing 
out  that  no  warning  that  an  unlawful  and  in- 
humane act  will  be  committed  can  possibly 
be  accepted  as  an  excuse  or  palliation  for  that 
act  or  as  an  abatement  of  the  responsibility 
for  its  commission."  f 

Furthermore,  as  early  as  January  20,  1915, 
the  Secretary  of  State  wrote  to  the  chairman 
of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations: 

:<The  Department  of  Justice  has  recently 
apprehended  at  least  four  persons  of  German 
nationality,  who,  it  is  alleged,  obtained  Amer- 
ican passports  under  pretense  of  being  Amer- 
ican citizens  and  for  the  purpose  of  returning 
to  Germany  without  molestation  by  her  enemies 
during  the  voyage.  There  are  indications  that 
a  systematic  plan  had  been  devised  to  obtain 
American  passports  through  fraud  for  the  pur- 
pose of  securing  passage  for  German  officers 
and  reservists  desiring  to  return  to  Germany. 

*  No  action  was  taken  subsequently. 

t  American  Journal  of  International  Law,  Special  Supplement,  July, 
1915,  p.  132. 


120  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

Such  fraudulent  use  of  passports  by  Germans 
themselves  can  have  no  other  effect  than  to 
cast  suspicion  upon  American  passports  in 
general."* 

At  the  time  this  letter  was  written  by  our 
Secretary  of  State,  evidence  was  in  the  pos- 
session of  our  Department  of  Justice  which 
proved  conclusively,  as  we  shall  see  in  a  later 
chapter,  that  this  wholesale  counterfeiting  which 
"cast  suspicion  on  American  passports  in  gen- 
eral," was  being  carried  on  in  an  office  main- 
tained by  the  German  Embassy  and  directed 
by  officers  paid  by  them.  Yet  no  action  was 
taken  and  no  protest  made  to  Berlin.  Instead 
the  State  Department  merely  passed  new  reg- 
ulations requiring  the  attaching  of  a  photo- 
graph, and  expressed  the  hope  that  this  would 
"prevent  any  further  misuse  of  American  pass- 
ports." There  is,  therefore,  absolutely  no  basis 
of  fact  for  the  accusation  that  in  our  interpreta- 
tion of  our  rights  as  neutrals  we  favored  Eng- 
land as  against  Germany;  an  excellent  case 
could  be  made  out  to  prove  the  contrary,  and 
it  is  certainly  true  that  toward  Germany  we 

*  American  Journal  of  International  Law,  Special  Supplement,  July, 
1915,  p.  «8«. 


STRICT  NEUTRALITY  121 

were  lenient  to  a  degree  never  exhibited  toward 
the  other  belligerents. 

In  proportion  as  the  war  progressed  Eng- 
land's control  of  the  seas  became  more  and 
more  secure,  and  Germany  was  forced  to  ac- 
cept increased  difficulties  in  her  attempts  to 
obtain  supplies  and  to  maintain  communica- 
tion with  the  outside  world.  Great  Britain 
also  attempted  to  establish  a  blockade  of  Ger- 
many which  was  a  long-recognized  and  uni- 
versally accepted  measure  of  naval  warfare, 
and  one  which  Great  Britain  herself  had  ad- 
mitted, when  at  the  time  of  the  Civil  War  we 
blockaded  the  Southern  ports,  even  though  it 
ruined  her  cotton  industry  and  threw  thou- 
sands of  her  citizens  into  poverty  and  bank- 
ruptcy. 

It  is  not  our  purpose  to  discuss  here  whether 
or  not  the  British  did  succeed  in  effectively  or 
legally  establishing  such  a  blockade.  It  is  suf- 
ficient to  say  that  we  recognized  and  acquiesced 
in  none  of  her  measures  which  went  beyond 
recognized  right,  and  we  protested  in  every 
case  where  her  procedure  was  open  to  question. 
As  a  natural  consequence  of  British  naval  su- 


WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

premacy  England  was  in  any  case  able  to  cut  off 
most  neutral  trade  from  Germany,  including 
our  own,  just  as  Germany,  through  the  less  ef- 
fective activity  of  her  raiders,  attempted  to 
cut  off  and  interfere  as  far  as  possible  with  trade 
to  Britain.  Through  all  this  period  Germany 
made  much  pretense  of  being  the  defender  of 
the  principle  of  freedom  of  the  seas.  That  she 
was,  however,  no  more  solicitous  of  our  rights 
than  her  adversaries  were,  was  manifest  in  the 
case  of  the  William  P.  Frye,  an  American  vessel 
carrying  a  cargo  of  wheat  to  the  British  Isles. 
The  Frye  was  captured  by  the  German  raider 
Prince  Eitel  Friedrich  on  January  28,  1915, 
and  sunk  with  her  cargo.  The  sinking  was  in 
violation  of  our  treaties  of  1799  and  1828  with 
Prussia,  and  our  government  presented  a  claim 
for  the  value  of  the  ship  and  a  protest  against 
the  violation.  The  discussion  which  followed 
is  particularly  interesting,  since  on  November 
29,  1915,  in  the  communication  which  closed 
the  case  there  occurs  the  following  promise, 
which  should  be  kept  in  mind  when  appraising 
Germany's  good  faith  in  her  subsequent  nego- 
tiations with  the  United  States: 


STRICT  NEUTRALITY  123 

"The  German  Government  quite  shares  the 
view  of  the  American  Government  that  all 
possible  care  must  be  taken  for  the  security 
of  the  crew  and  passengers  of  a  vessel  to  be 
sunk.  Consequently,  the  persons  found  on 
board  of  a  vessel  may  not  be  ordered  into  her 
lifeboats  except  when  the  general  conditions, 
that  is  to  say,  the  weather,  the  condition  of 
the  sea,  and  the  neighborhood  of  the  coast  af- 
ford absolute  certainty  that  the  boats  will  reach 
the  nearest  port.  For  the  rest  the  German 
Government  begs  to  point  out  that  in  cases 
where  German  naval  forces  have  sunk  neutral 
vessels  for  carrying  contraband,  no  loss  of  life 
has  yet  occurred."  * 

The  fact  that  the  English  Navy  had  prac- 
tically driven  German  war-ships  from  the  seas 
not  only  made  it  difficult  or  impossible  for  neu- 
trals to  land  supplies  in  Germany,  but  also 
made  it  possible  for  neutral  commerce  unmo- 
lested to  carry  supplies  of  all  sorts  to  the  Allied 
governments.  There  is  no  obligation  whatever 
in  international  law  upon  a  neutral  government 
to  forbid  its  subjects  or  citizens  to  send  sup- 
plies to  belligerents.  Great  Britain  and  France 
were  very  far  from  being  prepared  for  this  war 

*  Scott,  "A  Survey  of  International  Relations  Between  the  United 
States  and  Germany,"  p.  332. 


124  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

to  the  same  degree  that  Germany  had  been, 
and,  naturally,  when  the  seas  were  open,  they 
bought  from  American  manufacturers  large 
quantities  of  munitions  of  war.  There  is  no 
question  that  these  shipments  were  useful  to  the 
Allies.  There  is  also  no  question  that  they  were 
entirely  legal.  America  was  doing  only  what 
Germany  and  Austria  had  repeatedly  done. 
Prussian  subjects  sold  large  quantities  of  am- 
munition to  Russia  during  the  Crimean  War, 
and  since  that  time  German  subjects  have  sup- 
plied all  belligerents  who  needed  munitions  and 
who  had  money  to  buy  them.  Germany  and 
Austria-Hungary,  as  Secretary  Lansing  pointed 
out,  sold  munitions  of  war  to  Great  Britain  in 
her  war  with  the  Boer  Republics,  although  the 
Boers  had  neither  ships  nor  seacoast,  and  could 
consequently  not  import  them.  It  had  in  its 
own  practice  never  fixed  any  limit  to  this  trade, 
but  it  is  only  fair  to  say  that  in  the  Kriegsbrauch 
im  Landkriege,  issued  in  1902,  though  she  ad- 
mitted the  right  of  subjects  of  neutral  states 
to  supply  belligerents  with  contraband,  she 
tried  to  make  a  distinction  between  supplying 
it  in  small  quantities  and  on  a  large  scale.  Yet 
after  this  Germany  had  furnished  the  Turks 


STRICT  NEUTRALITY  125 

with  ammunition  in  their  war  against  Italy, 
and  both  Austria  and  Germany  had  furnished 
munitions  to  belligerents  in  the  Balkan  wars 
without  establishing  any  limit.  Not  only,  there- 
fore, was  there  no  legal  reason  why  the  United 
States  should  prevent  this  traffic,  but  in  per- 
mitting it  she  was  merely  following  "the  long- 
established  practice  of  the  two  empires  in  the 
matter  of  trade  in  war  supplies." 

There  was  in  addition  to  the  question  of  prin- 
ciple a  practical  and  substantial  reason  why  the 
government  of  the  United  States  has  from  the 
foundation  of  the  republic  to  the  present  advo- 
cated and  practised  an  unrestricted  trade  in 

arms  and  military  supplies: 

1 

"It  has  never  been  the  policy  of  this  country 
to  maintain  in  time  of  peace,"  wrote  Secretary 
Lansing,  "a  large  military  establishment  of 
stores  of  arms  and  ammunition  sufficient  toi 
repel  invasion  by  a  well  equipped  and  powerful 
enemy.  It  has  desired  to  remain  at  peace  with 
all  nations  and  to  avoid  any  appearance  of 
menacing  such  peace  by  the  threat  of  its  armies 
and  navies.  In  consequence  of  this  standing 
policy  the  United  States  would,  in  the  event  of 
attack  by  a  foreign  power,  be  at  the  outset  of 
the  war  seriously,  if  not  fatally,  embarrassed 
by  the  lack  of  arms  and  ammunition  and  by 


126  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

the  means  to  produce  them  in  sufficient  quanti- 
ties to  supply  the  requirements  of  national  de- 
fense. The  United  States  has  always  depended 
upon  the  right  and  power  to  purchase  arms 
and  ammunition  from  neutral  nations  in  case 
of  foreign  attack.  This  right,  which  it  claims 
for  itself,  it  cannot  deny  to  others. 

"Manifestly  the  application  of  this  theory 
would  result  in  every  nation  becoming  an 
armed  camp,  ready  to  resist  aggression  and 
tempted  to  employ  force  in  asserting  its  rights 
rather  than  appeal  to  reason  and  justice  for  the 
settlement  of  international  disputes. 

"Perceiving,  as  it  does,  that  the  adoption  of 
the  principle  that  it  is  the  duty  of  a  neutral  to 
prohibit  the  sale  of  arms  and  ammunition  to  a 
belligerent  during  the  progress  of  a  war  would 
inevitably  give  the  advantage  to  the  belligerent 
which  had  encouraged  the  manufacture  of  mu- 
nitions in  time  of  peace  and  which  had  laid  in 
vast  stores  of  arms  and  ammunition  in  antici- 
pation of  war,  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  is  convinced  that  the  adoption  of  the 
theory  would  force  militarism  on  the  world 
and  work  against  that  universal  peace  which  is 
the  desire  and  purpose  of  all  nations  which 
exalt  justice  and  righteousness  in  their  relations 
with  one  another."  * 

While  both  Austria  and  Germany  could  not 
but  admit  the  right  of  our  citizens  to  sell  mu- 

*  Secretary  Lansing  to  Ambassador  Penfield,  August  12,  1915.  Cf. 
American  Journal  of  International  Law,  Special  Supplement,  July,  1915, 
pp.  168-9. 


STRICT  NEUTRALITY  127 

nitions  to  belligerents,  they  tried  by  direct  rep- 
resentation and  by  press  campaigns  in  this 
country  to  bring  about  its  complete  suppression 
or  at  least  its  restriction.  It  was  for  this  rea- 
son that  Senator  Stone,  then  chairman  of  the 
Senate  Committee  on  Foreign  Affairs,  brought 
up  this  question  among  others  in  his  letter  to 
the  Secretary  of  State  on  January  8,  1915. 
The  whole  question  is  summed  up  in  the  last 
paragraph  of  Secretary  Bryan's  detailed  reply 
of  January  20: 

"If  any  American  citizens,  partisans  of  Ger- 
many and  Austria-Hungary,  feel  that  this  ad- 
ministration is  acting  in  a  way  injurious  to  the 
cause  of  those  countries,  this  feeling  results 
from  the  fact  that  on  the  high  seas  the  German 
and  Austro-Hungarian  naval  power  is  thus  far 
inferior  to  the  British.  It  is  the  business  of  a 
belligerent  operating  on  the  high  seas,  not  the 
duty  of  a  neutral,  to  prevent  contraband  from 
reaching  an  enemy.  Those  in  this  country  who 
sympathize  with  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary 
appear  to  assume  that  some  obligation  rests 
upon  this  Government  in  the  performance  of 
its  neutral  duty  to  prevent  all  trade  in  con- 
traband, and  thus  to  equalize  the  difference 
due  to  the  relative  naval  strength  of  the  bellig- 
erents. No  such  obligation  exists;  it  would  be 
an  unneutral  act,  an  act  of  partiality  on  the 
part  of  this  Government  to  adopt  such  a  policy 


128  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

if  the  Executive  had  the  power  to  do  so.  If 
Germany  and  Austria-Hungary  can  not  import 
contraband  from  this  country,  it  is  not,  because 
of  that  fact,  the  duty  of  the  United  States  to 
close  its  markets  to  the  allies.  The  markets 
of  this  country  are  open  upon  equal  terms  to 
all  the  world,  to  every  nation,  belligerent  or 
neutral. 

"The  foregoing  categorical  replies  to  specific 
complaints  is  sufficient  answer  to  the  charge 
of  unfriendliness  to  Germany  and  Austria-Hun- 
gary."* 

We  have  dealt  with  this  question  at  length 
because  it  illustrates  how  Germany  chafed  be- 
cause of  her  defeat  on  the  seas,  and  because  it 
was  destined  to  bring  about  an  attitude  of 
marked  hostility  on  the  part  of  the  German 
people  toward  the  United  States.  So  acute  did 
this  hostility  become  that  later,  when  American 
sympathizers  with  Germany  raised  a  fund  for 
the  relief  of  distressed  families  in  Germany, 
and  it  was  decided  to  turn  this  over  to  the 
town  councils  in  Germany  for  distribution,  these 
councils  refused  to  accept  it.f  Nor  was  this 
confined  to  the  civilian  population.  Through 

*  American  Journal  of  International  Law,  Special  Supplement,  July, 
1915,  p.  266-7. 

f  Former  Consul  Roth,  of  Plauen,  in  article  in  New  York  Times, 
June  30,  1918. 


STRICT  NEUTRALITY 

diplomatic  channels  Austria-Hungary  and  Ger- 
many had  failed  to  induce  America  to  depart 
in  their  interest  from  the  principles  of  inter- 
national law.  They  were  now  as  only  too  fre- 
quently to  have  recourse  to  the  underhand 
methods  which  were  to  become  so  distressingly 
familiar.  As  a  result  of  his  attempts  to  cripple 
the  Bethlehem  Steel  Company  and  the  plants 
in  the  Middle  West,  Doctor  Constantine  Dumba 
had  to  be  recalled  by  his  government.  It  was 
discovered  that  this  Austro-Hungarian  ambas- 
sador to  the  United  States  was  engaged  in  the 
attempt  to  cripple  the  Bethlehem  Steel  Com- 
pany and  other  munition  factories  in  the  East 
and  Middle  West.  For  this  amazing  inter- 
ference by  a  foreign  ambassador  in  American 
affairs,  Secretary  Lansing  demanded  Doctor 
Dumba's  recall  and  the  demand  was  acceded 
to  by  Vienna.  It  is  now  known  that  the  Ger- 
man ambassador,  Count  von  Bernstorff,  was 
equally  guilty,  though  at  the  time  he  escaped 
detection  by  effrontery.  German  underhand 
practice  and  offenses  against  the  sovereignty 
of  the  United  States  were,  however,  so  frequent 
and  important  that  they  must  be  considered 
later  in  a  separate  chapter. 


130  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

The  German  Emperor  did  not  fail  to  show 
his  hostility  to  America  and  our  ambassador, 
whom  he  refused  to  receive  and  who  had  diffi- 
culty thereafter  in  obtaining  the  necessary  dip- 
lomatic interviews.  The  whole  attitude  of  Ger- 
many toward  America  from  this  time  forward 
is  perhaps  best  represented  by  what  happened 
when  Mr.  Gerard  had  his  important  conference 
with  Wilhelm  II  on  October  22,  1915: 

"The  Emperor  was  standing,"  says  he,  "so 
naturally  I  stood  also;  and  according  to  his 
habit  ...  he  stood  very  close  to  me  and 
talked  very  earnestly.  .  .  He  showed,  how- 
ever, great  bitterness  against  the  United  States 
and  repeatedly  said,  'America  had  better  look 
out  after  this  war';  and  'I  shall  stand  no  non- 
sense from  America  after  the  w^ar.'  ...  I 
was  so  fearful  in  reporting  the  dangerous  part 
of  this  interview,  on  account  of  the  many  spies 
not  only  in  my  own  embassy  but  also  in  the 
State  Department,  that  I  sent  but  a  very  few 
words  in  a  roundabout  way  by  courier  direct 
to  the  President."* 

It  was  to  be  evident  in  the  submarine  cam- 
paign which  followed  that  in  his  measures 

*  Ambassador  Gerard,  "My  Four  Years  in  Germany,"  1917,  pp.  251- 
253. 


STRICT  NEUTRALITY  131 

against  neutrals  the  Kaiser  and  his  advisers 
were  not  to  be  henceforth  restrained  (if  they 
ever  had  been)  by  any  recognition  of  American 
rights,  and  the  spirit  of  the  whole  submarine 
warfare  may  be  read  out  of  these  undisguised 
threats  made  to  our  ambassador  at  Berlin. 


CHAPTER  V 
ALIENATION  OF  AMERICAN  SYMPATHIES 

THE  United  States  finally  entered  the  war 
against  Germany  as  the  result  of  a  long 
series  of  actions  which  proved  that  we  were 
dealing,  in  President  Wilson's  expressive  phrase, 
with  "an  irresponsible  Government  which  has 
thrown  aside  all  considerations  of  humanity  and 
of  right  and  is  running  amuck."  If  a  "just 
and  necessary  war"  (granted  that  to-day  there 
can  be  such  a  war)  had  arisen  between  Germany 
and  Austria,  on  the  one  hand,  and  France,  Rus- 
sia, and  Great  Britain  on  the  other,  and  had 
been  conducted  according  to  the  recognized 
laws  of  war,  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that 
the  majority  of  Americans  would  have  sided 
against  the  Central  Empires.  They  had  not 
sided  against  Germany  in  1870.  Quite  the  con- 
trary. Germans  like  Herkimer,  Steuben,  Karl 
Schurz,  and  Franz  Sigel  had  played  an  impor- 
tant part  in  our  history.  The  Germans  were  a 
large  element  in  our  emigrant  population  and 

132 


AMERICAN  SYMPATHIES  133 

had  proved  themselves  thrifty  and  law-abiding 
citizens.  We  had  never  been  at  war  with  their 
country;  our  old  treaty  with  Prussia  seemed  to 
indicate  that  we  were  friendly  rather  than  rival 
Powers.  Indeed,  the  tension  between  us  had 
never  been  as  keen  as  it  was  between  ourselves 
and  France  in  the  days  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion and  the  Directorate,  and  on  our  unswept 
political  hearth  there  lay  still  the  ashes  of  old 
wars  with  Britain.  Toward  neither  side  was 
there  any  initial  hostility,  however,  though  past 
relationships  favored  Germany,  the  land  of  the 
universities  in  which  most  of  the  leaders  in  our 
academic  life  had  been  trained.  It  is,  there- 
fore, fair  to  say  that  if  the  American  people 
had  taken  any  side  it  would  have  been  that  to 
which  unprejudiced  judgment  on  the  issues  of 
the  war  and  its  conduct  forced  them,  and  that 
in  general  the  American  people  would  have 
preferred  to  regard  the  conflict  in  accordance 
with  our  historic  policy  as  a  war  in  another 
world.  From  the  President's  Proclamation  of 
August  19,  1914,  we  have  seen  that  at  the  out- 
set, our  government  had  assumed  that  this  was 
such  a  war.  But  even  after  we  had  refused  to 


134  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

pass  judgment  on  the  issues  involved,  Germany 
was  to  render  impossible  the  continuance  of  this 
initial  attitude  of  aloofness.  She  was  to  be- 
gin by  throwing  away  the  good-will  of  the 
world,  and  step  by  step  her  course  was  to  alien- 
ate American  sympathy  also.  She  forced  us  to 
recognize  in  her,  first  the  enemy  to  the  peace  of 
Europe  and  then  the  enemy  to  the  peace  of  the 
world  and  to  the  life  and  institutions  of  all 
free  peoples.  Indeed,  so  flagrant  was  her  con- 
duct that  the  phrase  "strictly  neutral,"  which 
should  have  served  as  the  standard  of  the  Amer- 
ican attitude,  became  among  our  people  a  by- 
word and  reproach. 

In  this  process  of  alienation  the  first  step  was 
her  violation  of  the  neutrality  of  Belgium, 
which,  as  one  of  the  Powers  signatory  to  the 
treaty  of  1839  she  had  pledged  herself  to  defend. 
The  brutality  and  injustice  of  this  act  was 
made  somewhat  less  shocking  by  the  plea  of 
guilty  which  the  German  chancellor  promptly 
offered  before  the  Reichstag.  The  world,  how- 
ever, condemned  this  treacherous  aggression. 
To  make  amends,  therefore,  Germany  began  to 
vilify  her  innocent  victim.  Some  weeks  later, 


AMERICAN  SYMPATHIES  135 

in  the  course  of  the  invasion,  she  claimed  to 
have  discovered  memoranda  of  conversations 
between  the  English  and  Belgian  military  at- 
taches, and  falsely  announced  to  the  world  that 
Belgium  had  forfeited  her  neutrality  and  had 
entered  into  an  alliance  with  England.  No  one 
knew  better  than  those  responsible  for  this 
accusation  how  dishonest  it  was,  for,  as  the  ex- 
director  of  Krupp's  was  later  to  make  plain, 
Belgium  had  such  confidence  in  Germany's 
pledges  that  she  was  dependent  on  Krupp  and 
German  munition-makers  for  her  war  material. 
When,  therefore,  she  was  forced  to  defend  her- 
self against  Germany  her  difficulties  were  much 
increased  by  the  fact  that  the  Allies,  to  whom 
she  was  forced  to  look  for  protection,  could  not 
provide  the  ammunition  she  used  or  the  type 
of  gun  to  which  she  was  accustomed.  If,  there- 
fore, Germany's  act  was  brutal,  her  excuse  was 
vicious.  The  morality  of  the  whole  procedure 
was  summarized  by  a  Swiss  neutral,  Karl 
Spitteler,  who  says: 

"That  a  wrong  was  done  to  Belgium  was 
originally  openly  confessed  by  the  perpetrator. 
As  an  after- thought,  in  order  to  appear  whiter, 


136  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

Cain  blackened  Abel.  In  my  opinion  it  was  a 
spiritual  blunder  to  rummage  for  documents  in 
the  pockets  of  the  quivering  victim.  .  .  .  To 
calumniate  her  in  addition  is  really  too  much."  * 

Neutrals  were  not  long  to  be  allowed  the  poor 
consolation  of  believing  that  Germany's  act 
was  one  of  sudden  and  unaccountable  despera- 
tion. That  it  was  the  expression  of  a  philoso- 
phy of  national  life  became  evident  a  few 
days  later,  on  the  publication  of  Sir  Edward 
Goschen's  last  interview  with  Von  Bethmann- 
Hollweg.  The  chancellor,  when  he  realized  the 
momentous  character  of  the  impending  conflict, 
which  seems  to  have  been  arranged  without 
his  full  knowledge,  evidently  used  what  little 
influence  he  had  to  prevent  it.  When,  how- 
ever, he  saw  the  military  party  and  his  master, 
the  Emperor,  driving  for  war,  he  tried  again  to 
prevent  England  from  entering  the  great  melee. 
England,  too,  had  guaranteed  Belgium's  neu- 
trality and  had  announced  through  her  ambas- 
sador that  she  would  fight  if  that  neutrality 
were  violated.  The  German  chancellor  seems 
to  have  been  unable  to  understand  a  course  so 

*  Cf.  Harding,  "The  Study  of  the  Great  War,"  p.  48. 


AMERICAN  SYMPATHIES  137 

plainly  indicated.  "He  said  that  the  step 
taken  by  His  Majesty's  Government  was  terri- 
ble to  a  degree,  just  for  a  word — 'neutrality,' 
a  word  which  in  war-time  had  so  often  been 
disregarded — just  for  a  scrap  of  paper  Great 
Britain  was  going  to  make  war."  When  the 
chancellor's  "scrap  of  paper"  became  the  sub- 
ject of  grim  jest,  Von  Bethmann-Hollweg  tried 
to  volatilize  from  his  acknowledged  phrase  the 
opprobrious  connotations.  But  the  excuses  had 
much  the  same  effect  as  Germany's  accusations 
against  Belgium  after  the  violation.* 

Time  is  the  great  corrector  of  history.  It 
sets  detail  into  perspective,  and  we  are  only 
now  beginning  to  see  how  these  acts  fit  into 
the  drama  of  Germany's  militaristic  madness. 
They  seemed  to  us  at  first  impossible  grotesques, 
but  as  time  wore  on  and  our  knowledge  of  Ger- 
man purpose  became  clearer,  it  became  evident 
that  they  vv*.i-e  no  exceptions,  no  gargoyles,  but 
the  keystones  of  the  arch.  When,  after  illegal 
and  inhumane  acts  had  been  committed,  the 
inquiries  and  protests  of  neutral  governments 

*  Passelecq,  "The  Sincere  Chancellor,"  in  The  Nineteenth  Century  and 
After,  May,  1917. 


138  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

failed  to  bring  the  punishment  of  offenders,  or 
even  excuses,  we  came  painfully  to  realize  that 
such  acts  were  the  result  of  a  settled  policy  and 
in  accordance  with  Prussian  ideals.  For  just 
as  the  German  conception  held  that  the  state 
was  something  absolute,  that  there  was  no  judge 
above  it,  so  war,  the  state  in  action,  was  also 
absolute  and  could  be  checked  by  no  laws  or 
principles  of  humanity  and  justice.  Germany 
had,  to  be  sure,  signed  the  Conventions  of  The 
Hague,  and  by  doing  so  had  led  us  to  believe 
that  she,  with  other  nations,  would  make  some 
attempt  to  follow  them.  But  that  this  was 
not  the  case  becomes  clear  when  we  read  the 
Kriegsbrauch  im  Landkriege,*  the  official  publica- 
tion of  the  General  Staff,  destined  to  instruct 
officers  on  the  usages  of  war.  Here  we  find  not 
only  a  different  set  of  principles,  but  the  frank 
admission  that  The  Hague  Conferences  had 
been  signed  merely  for  the  purpose  of  disarm- 
ing neutral  suspicion. 

"Attempts  of  this  kind  (to  mitigate  the  hor- 
rors of  war)  will  also  not  be  wanting  in  the  fu- 

*  Cf.  also  L'Interprete  Militaire,   the  German  publication  for  the 
guidance  of  officers  in  conquered  territory. 


AMERICAN  SYMPATHIES  139 

ture,  the  more  so  as  these  agitations  have  found 
a  kind  of  moral  recognition  in  some  provisions 
of  the  Geneva  Convention  and  the  Brussels 
and  Hague  Conferences.  .  .  The  danger  that 
in  this  way  he  (the  officer)  will  arrive  at  false 
views  about  the  essential  character  of  war  must 
not  be  lost  sight  of.  .  .  By  steeping  himself 
in  military  history  an  officer  will  be  able  to 
guard  himself  against  excessive  humanitarian 
notions;  it  will  teach  him  that  certain  severities 
are  indispensable  to  war,  nay  more,  that  the 
only  true  humanity  very  often  lies  in  a  ruthless 
application  of  them.  .  .  . 

"Every  means  of  war  without  which  the 
object  of  the  war  cannot  be  obtained  is  permis- 
sible. .  .  It  follows  from  these  universally  valid 
principles  that  wide  limits  are  set  to  the  sub- 
jective freedom  and  arbitrary  judgment  of  the 
commanding  officer." 

At  the  very  first,  then,  we  were  given  clear 
indications  of  the  truth  which  was  to  dawn 
upon  us  slowly,  and  which  the  President  was 
to  express  nearly  four  years  later  when  he  an- 
nounced that  we  could  not  take  "the  word  of 
the  present  rulers  of  Germany  as  a  guarantee  of 
anything  that  is  to  endure,"  and  that  they  were 
"incapable  of  making  a  covenanted  peace." 

After   Germany's   violations   of  the   treaties 

*  C/.  Harding,  "The  Study  of  the  Great  War,"  p.  56. 


140  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

we  were  to  be  further  disillusioned  about  her 
methods  of  making  war.  How,  we  asked,  will 
Germany  treat  these  people  whom  she  has 
wronged?  The  question  was  all  the  more  per- 
tinent since  neutrals  who  have  defended  their 
neutrality  are,  according  to  The  Hague  Conven- 
tions, not  guilty  of  any  hostile  act.  We  were 
not  willing  to  hurry  to  conclusions.  When 
President  Poincare  called  President  Wilson's 
attention  to  what  was  happening,  the  latter  re- 
fused at  the  time  to  act  as  judge,  and,  speaking 
for  "a  nation  which  abhors  inhuman  practices 
in  the  conduct  of  a  war,"  replied  on  Septem- 
ber 19,  1914: 

"The  time  will  come  when  this  great  conflict 
is  over  and  when  the  truth  can  be  impartially 
determined.  When  that  time  arrives  those  re- 
sponsible for  violations  of  the  rules  of  civilized 
warfare,  if  such  violations  have  occurred,  and 
for  false  charges  against  their  adversaries,  must 
of  course  bear  the  burden  of  the  judgment  of 
the  world." 

Most  of  us  did  not  imagine  then  that  the  war 
could  last  more  than  some  months,  but  several 
years  have  now  passed  and  the  time  has  come 


AMERICAN  SYMPATHIES  141 

when  we  can  see  what  happened  in  something 
like  its  true  perspective.  Indeed,  the  whole 
question  has  been  made  the  subject  of  rigorous 
examination  by  distinguished  American  his- 
torians, following  the  official  investigations  by 
Belgium,  Germany,  and  the  Bryce  Commission. 
They  have  submitted  all  documents  to  scien- 
tific scrutiny  and  accepted  only  matter  from 
German  and  American  sources,  and  such  other 
material  as  scrupulously  scientific  investiga- 
tors would  be  justified  in  accepting.  The  re- 
sults have  been  published  in  the  studies  edited 
by  Professor  Munro.* 

That  we  may  not  be  unjust  in  a  matter  which 
so  easily  arouses  anger  and  detestation,  let  us 
confine  ourselves  entirely  to  records  made  by 
the  Germans  themselves.  The  German  soldier 
is  advised  to  keep  a  diary  when  on  campaign 
and  many  of  these  diaries  were  captured.  We 
may  begin  by  quoting  Joh.  van  der  Schoot,  re- 
servist of  the  Tenth  Company,  39th  Reserve 
Infantry  Regiment,  Seventh  Reserve  Army 
Corps,  who  announces:  "We  lived  like  God  in 

*  Cf.  especially  "German  War  Practices"  and  "German  Treatment  of 
Conquered  Territory,"  on  which  we  have  drawn  heavily.  (Committee 
on  Public  Information.) 


142  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

Belgium.'*  Curiously  enough  he  did  not  mean 
that  they  showed  mercy  or  administered  justice, 
as  the  following  extracts  will  show: 

"A  horrible  bath  of  blood.  The  whole  vil- 
lage burnt,  the  French  thrown  into  the  blazing 
houses,  civilians  with  the  rest." — (From  the 
diary  of  Private  Hassemer,  of  the  Eighth  Army 
Corps.) 

"In  the  night  of  August  18-19,  the  village 
of  Saint-Maurice  was  punished  for  having  fired 
on  German  soldiers  by  being  burnt  to  the 
ground  by  the  German  troops  (two  regiments, 
the  12th  Landwehr  and  the  17th).  The  village 
was  surrounded,  men  posted  about  a  yard  from 
one  another,  so  that  no  one  could  get  out.  Then 
the  Uhlans  set  fire  to  it,  house  by  house.  Neither 
man,  woman,  nor  child  could  escape;  only 
the  greater  part  of  the  live  stock  was  carried 
off,  as  that  could  be  used.  Anyone  who  ven- 
tured to  come  out  was  shot  down.  All  the  in- 
habitants left  in  the  village  were  burnt  with 
the  houses." — (From  the  diary  of  Private  Karl 
Scheufele,  of  the  Third  Bavarian  Regiment  of 
Landwehr  Infantry.) 

"The  inhabitants  have  fled  in  the  village. 
It  was  horrible.  There  was  clotted  blood  on 
all  the  beards,  and  what  faces  one  saw,  terrible 
to  behold !  The  dead,  sixty  in  all,  were  at  once 
buried.  Among  them  were  many  old  women, 
some  old  men,  and  a  half-delivered  woman, 
awful  to  see;  three  children  had  clasped  each 


AMERICAN  SYMPATHIES  143 

other,  and  died  thus.  The  altar  and  the  vaults 
of  the  church  are  shattered.  They  had  a  tele- 
phone there  to  communicate  with  the  enemy. 
This  morning,  September  2,  all  the  survivors 
were  expelled,  and  I  saw  four  little  boys  carrying 
a  cradle,  with  a  baby  five  or  six  months  old  in 
it,  on  two  sticks.  All  this  was  terrible  to  see. 
Shot  after  shot !  Thunderbolt  after  thunder- 
bolt !  Everything  is  given  over  to  pillage;  fowls 
and  the  rest  all  killed.  I  saw  a  mother,  too, 
with  her  two  children;  one  had  a  great  wound 
on  the  head  and  had  lost  an  eye."-— (From  the 
diary  of  Lance-Corporal  Paul  Spielmann,  of 
the  Ersatz,  First  Brigade  of  Infantry  of  the 
Guard.) 

"The  pretty  little  village  of  Gue  d'Ossus, 
however,  was  apparently  set  on  fire  without 
cause.  A  cyclist  fell  off  his  machine  and  his 
rifle  went  off.  He  immediately  said  he  had 
been  shot  at.  All  the  inhabitants  were  burnt 
in  the  houses.  I  hope  there  will  be  no  more 
such  horrors.. 

"  At  Leppe  apparently  200  were  shot.  There 
must  have  been  some  innocent  men  among  them. 
In  future  we  shall  have  to  hold  an  inquiry  as  to 
their  guilt  instead  of  shooting  them. 

"In  the  evening  we  marched  to  Maubert- 
Fontaine.  Just  as  we  were  having  our  meal 
the  alarm  was  sounded — every  one  is  very 
jumpy. 

"September  3rd.  Still  at  Rethel,  on  guard 
over  prisoners.  .  .  .  The  houses  are  charming 
inside.  The  middle  class  in  France  has  mag- 


144  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

nificent  furniture.  We  found  stylish  pieces 
everywhere  and  beautiful  silk,  but  in  what  a 
state  .  .  .  Good  God !  .  .  .  Every  bit  of  furni- 
ture broken,  mirrors  smashed.  The  Vandals 
themselves  could  not  have  done  more  damage. 
This  place  is  a  disgrace  to  our  army.  The  in- 
habitants who  fled  could  not  have  expected, 
of  course,  that  all  their  goods  would  have  been 
left  intact  after  so  many  troops  had  passed. 
But  the  column  commanders  are  responsible 
for  the  greater  part  of  the  damage,  as  they  could 
have  prevented  the  looting  and  destruction. 
The  damage  amounts  to  millions  of  marks; 
even  the  safes  have  been  attacked. 

"In  a  solicitor's  house,  in  which,  as  luck 
would  have  it,  all  was  in  excellent  taste,  in- 
cluding a  collection  of  old  lace  and  Eastern 
works  of  art,  everything  was  smashed  to  bits. 

"I  could  not  resist  taking  a  little  memento 
myself  here  and  there.  .  .  .  One  house  was 
particularly  elegant,  everything  in  the  best  taste. 
The  hall  was  of  light  oak;  I  found  a  splendid 
raincoat  under  the  staircase  and  a  camera  for 
Felix." — (From  the  diary  of  an  officer  in  the 
178th  Regiment,  Twelfth  Saxon  Corps.) 

And  inquiry  proved  that  this  was  not  the 
work  of  isolated  individuals  who  had  got  out 
of  hand.  It  was  done  with  the  knowledge,  and 
in  many  cases  at  the  instigation  and  with  the 
co-operation  of  the  high  command.  Nothing 
shows  this  more  clearly  than  the  unfortunate 


AMERICAN  SYMPATHIES  145 

attempt  of  the  German  authorities  to  defend 
themselves  in  their  volume  Die  volkerrechts- 
widrige  Fuhrung  des  Belgischen  Volkskriegs,  for 
in  this  purely  ex  parte  presentation  the  sworn 
depositions  of  the  German  soldiers  proved  the 
contrary  of  what  was  intended,  and  in  addition 
the  names  of  the  German  officers  who  gave 
the  terrible  orders  are  published  officially.  Nor 
were  our  own  representatives  in  Belgium  un- 
informed on  what  was  taking  place.  Some 
reports  must  doubtless  have  reached  Wash- 
ington long  before  the  return  of  Minister  Whit- 
lock.  The  following  passage  in  his  report  to 
the  Secretary  of  State  made  on  September  12, 
1917,  is  but  a  final  confirmation  of  what  we 
had  already  learned. 

"Summary  executions  took  place  (at  Dinant) 
without  the  least  semblance  of  judgment.  The 
names  and  number  of  the  victims  are  not  known, 
but  they  must  be  numerous.  I  have  been  un- 
able to  obtain  precise  details  in  this  respect 
and  the  number  of  persons  who  have  fled 
is  unknown.  Among  the  persons  who  were 
shot  are:  Mr.  Defoin,  mayor  of  Dinant;  Sasse- 
rath,  first  alderman;  Nimmer,  age  70;  consul 
for  the  Argentine  Republic,  Victor  Poncelet, 
who  was  executed  in  the  presence  of  his  wife 
and  seven  children;  Wasseige  and  his  two  sons; 


146  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

Messrs.  Gustave  and  Leon  Nicaise,  two  very 
old  men;  Jules  Monin  and  others  were  shot 
in  the  cellar  of  their  brewery.  Mr.  Camille 
Pistte  and  son,  age  17;  Phillippart,  Pied- 
fort,  his  wife  and  daughter;  Miss  Marsigny. 
During  the  execution  of  about  forty  inhabi- 
tants of  Dinant,  the  Germans  placed  before 
the  condemned  their  wives  and  children.  It 
is  thus  that  Madame  Albin  who  had  just 
given  birth  to  a  child,  three  days  previously, 
was  brought  on  a  mattress  by  German  soldiers 
to  witness  the  execution  of  her  husband;  her 
cries  and  supplications  were  so  pressing  that 
her  husband's  life  was  spared." 

"Tamines  is  a  mining  village  in  the  Sambre; 
it  is  a  collection  of  small  cottages  sheltering 
about  5,000  inhabitants,  mostly  all  poor  la- 
borers. 

"The  little  graveyard  in  which  the  church 
stands  bears  its  mute  testimony  to  the  horror 
of  the  event.  There  are  hundreds  of  new-made 
graves,  each  with  its  small  wooden  cross  and 
its  bit  of  flowers;  the  crosses  are  so  closely 
huddled  that  there  is  scarcely  room  to  walk 
between  them.  The  crosses  are  alike  and  all 
bear  the  same  date,  the  sinister  date  of  August 
22d,  1914. 

"But  whether  their  hands  were  cut  off  or 
not,  whether  they  were  impaled  on  bayonets 
or  not,  children  were  shot  down,  by  military 
order,  in  cold  blood.  In  the  awful  crime  of 
the  Rock  of  Bayard,  there  overlooking  the 


AMERICAN  SYMPATHIES  147 

Meuse  below  Dinant,  infants  in  their  mother's 
arms  were  shot  down  without  mercy.  The 
deed,  never  surpassed  in  cruelty  by  any  band 
of  savages,  is  described  by  the  Bishop  of  Namur 
himself : 

''  'One  scene  surpasses  in  horror  all  others; 
it  is  the  fusillade  of  the  Rocher  Bayard  near 
Dinant.  It  appears  to  have  been  ordered  by 
Colonel  Meister.  This  fusillade  made  many 
victims  among  the  near-by  parishes,  especially 
those  of  des  Rivages  and  Neffe.  It  caused  the 
death  of  nearly  90  persons,  without  distinction 
of  age  or  sex.  Among  the  victims  were  babies 
in  arms,  boys  and  girls,  fathers  and  mothers 
of  families,  even  old  men. 

"  'It  was  there  that  12  children  under  the 
age  of  6  perished  from  the  fire  of  the  execu- 
tioners, 6  of  them  as  they  lay  in  their  mothers' 
arms: 

The  child  Fievet,  3  weeks  old. 

Maurice  Betemps,  11  months  old. 

Nelly  Pollet,  11  months  old. 

Gilda  Genon,  18  months  old. 

Gilda  Marchot,  2  years  old.  i 

Clara  Struvay,  2  years  and  6  months. 

"'The  pile  of  bodies  comprised  also  many 
children  from  6  to  14  years.  Eight  large  families 
have  entirely  disappeared.  Four  have  but 
one  survivor.  Those  men  that  escaped  death — 
and  many  of  whom  were  riddled  with  bullets — 
were  obliged  to  bury  in  a  summary  and  hasty 
fashion  their  fathers,  mothers,  brothers,  or 


148  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

sisters;  then  after  having  been  relieved  of  their 
money  and  being  placed  in  chains  they  were 
sent  to  Cassel  (Prussia).'"* 

Where  the  shadows  are  so  heavy  it  is  hardly 
worth  while  to  paint  any  darker  isolated  horrors 
like  the  brutal  execution  of  Edith  Cavell,  which 
the  American  representatives  tried  to  stay,  or 
the  murder  of  Captain  Fryatt,  for  whom  Am- 
bassador Gerard  attempted  hi  vain  to  pro- 
cure even  the  outward  forms  of  justice. 

But  to  have  their  rights  as  non-combatants 
trampled  under  foot,  their  houses  looted,  and 
their  lives  often  sacrificed  was  not  to  be  the 
end  of  the  woe  of  the  Belgians. 

A  new  chapter  was  to  be  added,  when  in 
1916  the  German  military  authorities,  who 
were  the  German  power,  ordered  the  wholesale 
deportation  of  Belgians  and  French  working 
men,  and  often  of  women  and  girls.  The  ac- 
count of  one  eye-witness  must  suffice,  who  de- 
scribes merely  what  happened  at  Mons. 

"I  will  take  the  18th  of  November  of  last 
year  (1916).  A  week  or  so  before  that  a  placard 
was  placed  on  the  walls  telling  my  capital  city 

*  Cf.  "German  War  Practices,"  pp.  33,  34. 


AMERICAN  SYMPATHIES  149 

of  Mons  that  in  seven  days  all  the  men  of  that 
city  who  were  not  clergymen,  who  were  not 
priests,  who  did  not  belong  to  the  city  council, 
would  be  deported. 

"At  half  past  five,  in  the  gray  of  the  morning 
of  the  18th  of  November,  they  walked  out,  six 
thousand  two  hundred  men  at  Mons,  myself 
and  another  leading  them  down  the  cobble- 
stones of  the  street  and  out  where  the  rioting 
would  be  less  than  in  the  great  city,  with  the 
soldiers  on  each  side,  with  bayonets  fixed,  with 
the  women  held  back. 

"The  degradation  of  it !  The  degradation 
of  it  as  they  walked  into  this  great  market 
square,  where  the  pens  were  erected  exactly 
as  if  they  were  cattle — all  the  great  men  of  that 
province — the  lawyers,  the  statesmen,  the  heads 
of  the  trades,  the  men  that  had  made  the  cap- 
ital of  Hainaut  glorious  during  the  last  twenty 
years. 

"There  they  were  collected;  no  question 
of  who  they  were,  whether  they  were  busy  or 
what  they  were  doing,  or  what  their  position 
in  life.  *  Go  to  the  right !  Go  to  the  left !  Go 
to  the  right ! '  So  they  were  turned  to  the  one 
side  or  the  other. 

"Trains  were  standing  there  ready,  steam- 
ing, to  take  them  to  Germany.  You  saw  on 
the  one  side  the  one  brother  taken,  the  other 
brother  left.  A  hasty  embrace  and  they  were 
separated  and  gone.  You  had  here  a  man  on 
his  knees  before  a  German  officer,  pleading 
and  begging  to  take  his  old  father's  place;  that 


150  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

was  all.  The  father  went  and  the  son  stayed. 
They  were  packed  in  those  trains  that  were 
waiting  there. 

;'You  saw  the  women  in  hundreds,  with 
bundles  in  their  hands,  beseeching  to  be  per- 
mitted to  approach  the  trains,  to  give  their 
men  the  last  that  they  had  in  life  between  them- 
selves and  starvation — a  small  bundle  of  cloth- 
ing to  keep  them  warm  on  their  way  to  Ger- 
many. You  saw  women  approach  with  a  bundle 
that  had  been  purchased  by  the  sale  of  the  last 
of  their  household  effects.  Not  one  was  al- 
lowed to  approach  to  give  her  man  the  warm 
pair  of  stockings  or  the  warm  jacket,  so  there 
might  be  some  chance  of  his  reaching  there. 
Off  they  went!"* 

The  same  sad  story  was  to  be  repeated 
throughout  Belgium  and  northern  France  under 
conditions  which  were  often  worse.  Minister 
Whitlock  reported  to  our  Secretary  of  State, 
November  28,  1916,  that  many  men  had  been 
taken  from  the  Province  of  Valenciennes. 
"They  have  been  without  food  for  sixty-three 
hours  and  have  no  blankets.  Apparently  they 
have  been  deprived  of  food  in  order  to  oblige 
them  to  work  for  the  Germans,  "f  Ambassador 

*  Cf.  "German  War  Practices,"  pp.  70-71. 
f<7/.  "German  War  Practices,"  p.  76. 


AMERICAN  SYMPATHIES  151 

Gerard  was  at  that  time  in  the  United  States, 
and  Mr.  Grew  who  was  charge  d'affaires  took 
up  the  matter  with  the  chancellor  and  Minister 
Whitlock,  and  representatives  of  other  Powers 
were  able  to  secure  some  lessening  of  the  sever- 
ity of  the  deportations.  The  American  Govern- 
ment on  December  5,  1916,  through  our  repre- 
sentative at  Berlin  laid  a  formal  protest  before 
the  German  chancellor.  Like  protests  were 
made  by  the  Pope,  the  King  of  Spain,  the 
government  of  Switzerland,  and  other  neutrals. 
These  were  unavailing,  though  our  own  protest 
is  interesting  since  it  is  made  in  the  interest  of 
"those  humane  principles  of  international  prac- 
tice which  have  long  been  accepted  and  fol- 
lowed by  civilized  nations."  The  words  humane 
and  humanity  were  now  to  appear  repeatedly, 
and  to  be  disregarded  as  often,  in  our  protests 
to  Berlin  up  to  the  time  of  our  own  entrance 
into  the  war. 

The  looting  of  houses  by  soldiers  and  de- 
portations of  whole  sections  of  the  population 
were  to  be  followed  by  a  systematic  govern- 
ment exploitation  according  to  a  plan,  which 
was  designed  for  the  deliberate  purpose  of  crip- 


152  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAft 

pling  manufacturing  and  industry  in  these 
countries  in  order  to  forestall  future  competi- 
tion.* 

"August  17th.  We  belong  to  the  7th  Corps, 
14th  Infantry  Division,  Lieut. -General  v.  Fleck, 
Corps  Commander  v.  Bulow. 

"August  19th.  Could  not  find  regiment 
and  remained  with  ammunition  column.  They, 
when  we  halted,  plundered  a  villa;  had  a  great 
deal  of  wine. 

"August  %%nd.  Bivouac  near  Anderleus. 
Ravaged  terribly,  fed  magnificently. 

"August  26th.  At  6  o'clock  we  went  into 
bivouac.  As  always,  the  surrounding  houses 
were  immediately  plundered.  Found  four  rab- 
bits, roasted.  Dined  magnificently.  Plates, 
cups,  knives  and  forks,  glasses,  etc.;  eleven  bot- 
tles champagne,  four  bottles  wine,  and  six  bot- 
tles liqueur  were  drunk. 

"August  27th.  At  6.30  marched  out.  Every 
one  still  provided  with  wine  and  champagne 
bottles. 

"August  %8th.  Senkenteg  (St.  Quentin) .  Had 
to  bivouac  in  the  market-place.  Emptied  the 
houses;  carried  the  beds  on  to  the  square  and 
slept  on  them.  Had  our  fill  of  coffee."  (From 
diary  of  non-commissioned  officer  of  the  Re- 
serve Klasse,  2d  Regiment  of  Uhlans,  Gardeleg- 
en,  Altmark.  Original  German  in  Bryce,  "Evi- 
dence and  Documents,"  p.  260.) 

*  Cf.  "German  Treatment  of  Conquered  Territory,"  p.  S4. 


AMERICAN  SYMPATHIES  153 

Practically  everything  movable  in  Belgium 
was  thus  taken  by  looting,  confiscation,  or  forced 
sale.  The  list  of  articles  detailed  in  official  or- 
dinances for  such  confiscation  or  forced  sale  runs 
to  six  columns  of  a  large  octavo  page.  In  ad- 
dition all  machinery  for  manufacturing  that 
could  be  transported  to  Germany  was  taken, 
and  where  material  like  boilers  which  had  been 
built  into  manufacturing  plants  could  not  be 
removed,  they  were  rendered  forever  useless 
by  being  crushed  and  broken  by  special  bat- 
tering-rams designed  to  this  end.  We  are  left 
in  no  doubt  as  to  the  purpose  of  all  this,  for  in 
February,  1917,  Deputy  Beumer  took  pride  in 
making  the  following  statement  before  the  Prus- 
sian Diet. 

"Anybody  who  knows  the  present  state  of 
things  in  Belgian  industry  will  agree  with  me 
that  it  must  take  at  least  some  years — assuming 
that  Belgium  is  independent  at  all — before  Bel- 
gium can  even  think  of  competing  with  us  in 
the  world  market.  And  anybody  who  has 
travelled,  as  I  have  done,  through  the  occupied 
districts  of  France,  will  agree  with  me  that  so 
much  damage  has  been  done  to  industrial  prop- 
erty that  no  one  need  be  a  prophet  in  order  to 
say  that  it  will  take  more  than  ten  years  before 


154  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

we  need  think  of  France  as  a  competitor  or  of 
the  re-establishment  of  French  industry."* 

The  same  purposes  lay  behind  the  systematic 
destruction  and  laying  waste  of  a  large  and 
once  rich  section  of  France  at  the  time  of  the 
Hindenburg  retreat  in  the  spring  of  1917. 
Everything  that  could  possibly  be  taken  was 
taken.  Everything  that  could  be  of  any  use 
to  the  sorely  tried  population  was  destroyed; 
fruit-trees  were  sawed  down,  farming  imple- 
ments collected  and  burned.  Much  of  it  could 
not  possibly  be  claimed  to  bear  the  poor  justifi- 
cation of  military  necessity.  For  descriptions, 
let  us  confine  ourselves  again  to  German  wit- 
nesses, the  first  passage  translated  from  the 
Berliner  Tageblatt  of  March  26,  1917: 

"Smouldering  fires  and  smoke  and  stench;  a 
rumble  spreading  from  village  to  village — the 
mine  charges  are  still  doing  their  final  work, 
which  leaves  nothing  more  to  do. 

"It  is  not  so  easy  to  scatter  a  whole  village 
into  brick-dust.  There  are  hundreds  of  villages 
out  there  which  were  under  fire  for  weeks  on 
end,  yet  still  showed  a  wall  or  two  and  an  occa- 
sional roof.  ...  But  when  our  engineers  get 

*  Cf.  "German  Treatment  of  Conquered  Territory,"  p.  7. 


AMERICAN  SYMPATHIES  155 

to  work  on  a  village,  our  engineers !  Then  it 
goes  into  the  air  as  if  a  mighty  earthquake  had 
caught  it,  it  crumbles  and  breaks  up  and  falls, 
and  the  last  pitiful  houses  are  knocked  out  by 
the  coup  de  grace.  And  what  a  rubbish-heap 
there  lies  spread — bricks  and  clay  and  stones 
and  timbers  licked  by  the  flames.  Poor  devil 
of  a  war-zone,  seek  you  habitation  elsewhere. 
Old-time  farms  with  massive  walls,  vaulting, 
and  any  amount  of  resisting  power — their  walls 
were  drilled  scientifically,  and  the  charges  fired. 
Then  the  whole  farm  crumpled  up,  just  as  it 
was  intended  to  do — half  over  the  road  which 
it  was  its  business  to  bury,  and  the  other  half 
into  the  cracking  cellars. 

" Rubble,  nothing  but  rubble,  all  this  ancient 
village  history,  all  these  future  prospects  of 
modern  peasant  life.  The  fine  broad  yard  sinks 
away  with  the  cottage;  the  cottage  burns  quietly 
to  ashes,  and  the  remains  of  its  clay  walls  yield 
to  the  first  serious  stroke  of  the  battering-ram. 
The  great  farm  buildings  put  up  a  defense — 
only  to  fly  into  the  air,  rain  down  again,  and 
mingle  themselves  with  their  neighbors'  misery 
in  a  field  of  ruins  which  once  bore  a  name  and 
paid  a  rent. 

"Let  them  see  it  over  there!  Let  them  see 
it  over  there !  This  fearful  naked  war  should 
be  reflected  in  all  the  shop  windows  of  the 
Boulevards.  We  have  put  distance  between  us 
and  our  enemies.  It  is  a  desert  full  of  wretch- 
edness. .  .  . 

"Farewell,   comrades   of  the   Somme!    The 


156  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

earth  which  drank  your  blood  is  upheaved  and 
torn  asunder.  It  is  made  unfruitful,  it  is  turned 
into  a  desert,  and  your  graves  are  made  free 
from  the  dwellings  of  men.  Those  who  tread 
it,  your  desert,  will  be  greeted  by  our  shells." 

The  second  is  from  the  Lokal  Anzeiger,  of 
March  18,  1917: 

"In  the  course  of  these  last  few  months  great 
stretches  of  French  territory  have  been  turned 
by  us  into  a  dead  country.  It  varies  in  width 
from  10  to  12  or  15  kilometers  (6^  to  7^  or  8 
miles)  and  extends  along  the  whole  of  our  new 
position,  presenting  a  terrible  barrier  of  desola- 
tion to  any  enemy  hardy  enough  to  advance 
against  our  new  lines.  No  village  or  farm  was 
left  standing  on  this  glacis,  no  road  was  left 
passable,  no  railway  track  or  embankment  was 
left  in  being.  Where  once  were  woods  there 
are  gaunt  rows  of  stumps;  the  wells  have  been 
blown  up,  wires,  cables,  and  pipe-lines  de- 
stroyed. In  front  of  our  new  position  runs, 
like  a  gigantic  ribbon,  an  empire  of  death." 

It  would  be  useless  to  continue  the  recital  of 
unwarranted  practices  by  Germans  in  Poland, 
or  those  permitted  by  the  Germans  to  their 
allies,  the  Turks,  in  Armenia.  The  spirit  in 
which  the  whole  was  done  is  sufficiently  evident 
in  the  order  issued  by  General  Stenger,  of  the 


:l 


AMERICAN  SYMPATHIES  157 

58th  German  Brigade,  on  August  26,  1914,  and 
which  was  testified  to  by  numerous  German 
prisoners  taken  from  that  brigade: 

"After  today  no  more  prisoners  will  be  taken. 
All  prisoners  are  to  be  killed.  Wounded,  with 
or  without  arms,  are  to  be  killed.  Even  pris- 
oners already  grouped  in  convoys  are  to  be 
killed.  Let  not  a  single  living  enemy  remain 
behind  us."  * 

If  any  of  these  practices  were  later  modified 
it  was  done  not  out  of  any  consideration  for 
humanity  or  respect  for  signed  conventions; 
any  abatements  noticeable  were  effected  by  the 
fear  of  neutral  opinion  or  of  reprisals  on  Ger- 
man prisoners.  The  spirit  that  dictated  such 
orders  was  the  Prussian  war  spirit. 

All  this  had  not  been  done  against  us  except 
in  the  sense  that  it  had  been  done  against  hu- 
manity and  against  those  laws  of  war  which 
through  two  centuries  civilized  nations  had 
been  trying  to  formulate  and  establish.  As  the 
truth  began  to  come  to  us,  it  made  neutrality 
of  thought  impossible,  though  our  government 
continued  to  maintain  a  scrupulous  neutrality 

*  Harding,  "The  Study  of  the  Great  War,"  p.  61. 


158  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

of  action.  What  had  happened,  however,  had 
served  very  largely  to  undermine  our  faith  in 
the  good-will  or  legitimate  intentions  of  the 
Imperial  German  Government.  When,  during 
this  period  and  later,  aggressive  measures  were 
taken  against  our  own  rights  and  privileges,  we 
were  naturally  forced  to  interpret  them  in  the 
light  of  what  had  taken  place  in  Germany's 
relations  with  other  nations.  The  change  of 
sentiment  that  came  over  the  American  people 
is  well  epitomized  by  what  happened  in  the  case 
of  Vernon  Kellogg  during  his  work  with  the 
Commission  for  Relief  in  Belgium,  and  which 
he  gave  in  his  statement  to  the  American  Com- 
mittee on  Public  Information  at  the  time  of  its 
investigation.* 

"I  went  into  Belgium  and  occupied  France 
a  neutral  and  I  maintained  while  there  a  stead- 
fastly neutral  behavior.  But  I  came  out  no 
neutral.  I  cannot  conceive  that  any  American 
enjoying  an  experience  similar  to  mine  could 
have  come  out  a  neutral.  He  would  come  out, 
as  I  came,  with  the  ineradicable  conviction 
that  a  people  or  a  government  which  can  do 
what  the  Germans  did  and  are  doing  in  Bel- 

*  Cf.  "German  War  Practices,"  pp.  93-94. 


AMERICAN  SYMPATHIES  159 

gium  and  France  to-day  must  not  be  allowed, 
if  there  is  power  on  earth  to  prevent  it,  to  do 
this  a  moment  longer  than  can  be  helped.  And 
they  must  not  be  allowed  ever  to  do  it  again. 

"I  went  in  also  a  hater  of  war,  and  I  came 
out  a  more  ardent  hater  of  war.  But,  also,  I 
came  out  with  the  ineradicable  conviction, 
again,  that  the  only  way  in  which  Germany 
under  its  present  rule  and  in  its  present  state 
of  mind  can  be  kept  from  doing  what  it  has 
done  is  by  force  of  arms.  It  can  not  be  pre- 
vented by  appeal,  concession,  or  treaties. 
Hence,  ardently  as  I  hope  that  all  war  may 
cease,  I  hope  that  this  war  may  not  cease  until 
Germany  realizes  that  the  civilized  world  simply 
will  not  allow  such  horrors  as  those  for  which 
Germany  is  responsible  in  Belgium  and  France 
to  be  any  longer  possible." 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  LUSITANIA 

THE  first  serious  crisis  in  our  relations  with 
Germany  was  to  arise  as  a  result  of  her 
use  of  submarines  against  merchantmen.  Ger- 
many had  already  been  guilty,  as  we  have  seen, 
of  gross  violations  of  the  rules  of  war  on  land. 
She  had  torn  up  her  treaty  with  Belgium,  she 
had  in  that  country  instituted  for  a  time  at 
least  a  reign  of  terror  and,  after  having  invaded 
it,  contrary  to  the  rules  of  war,  refused  to  feed 
the  Belgian  civilians,  though  according  to  The 
Hague  Conventions,  which  Germany  had  signed, 
it  was  the  duty  of  the  occupying  Power  to 
feed  them  as  well  as  it  fed  its  own  soldiers. 

The  hard  fate  which  she  had  forced  upon 
the  civilian  population  seemed  to  move  neither 
her  rulers  nor  her  people.  As  a  consequence 
the  Belgians  were  in  the  winter  of  1914-15 
reduced  to  a  condition  bordering  on  starva- 
tion. jThe  sufferings  of  this  innocent  country 
had  made  a  particular  appeal  to  neutral  sym- 

160 


THE  LUSITANIA  161 

pathies,  and  America  had,  therefore,  after  con- 
siderable difficulty  organized  the  Commission 
for  Relief  in  Belgium.^  During  the  early  months 
of  this  same  year  were  to  appear  the  more  or 
less  official  investigations  which  testified  to 
the  conduct  of  the  German  invading  force, 
which  we  have  already  considered. 

Germany  had  already  bombarded  open  towns 
like  Scarborough  and  Yarmouth,  in  which  nu- 
merous civilians  had  been  killed,  and  had 
added  another  chapter  to  the  horrors  of  war 
when  on  April  22,  once  more  against  the  ex- 
press stipulations  of  The  Hague  Conventions, 
she  used  poisonous  gas  at  the  Battle  of  Ypres. 
However,  the  offenses  which  she  had  com- 
mitted on  land  we  overlooked,  even  when 
brought  officially  to  our  attention,  as  they  were 
when  the  Belgian  Commission  laid  its  griev- 
ances before  the  President.  It  is  necessary  to 
make  this  clear  to  all  those  who  believe  that 
we  entered  this  war  merely  out  of  considera- 
tions of  humanity.  We  paid  no  heed  to  such 
considerations  until  Germany  directly  threat- 
ened us  and  began  to  carry  out  violations  of 
the  rights  of  American  citizens  themselves, 


162  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

rights  recognized  since  the  foundation  of  our 
republic,  rights  sanctioned  by  international  law, 
and  furthermore  established  in  many  cases  by 
special  treaty  between  ourselves  and  Prussia. 
We  had  refused  to  protest  against  the  viola- 
tion of  the  rights  of  European  countries — it 
now  became  a  question  of  our  own  rights. 
Would  Germany  prove  more  scrupulous  on 
the  seas,  and  would  she  exhibit  there  any  re- 
gard for  those  principles  of  humanity  which 
had  failed  to  restrain  her  in  her  warfare  in 
Europe  ? 

We  must  first  consider  the  situation  which 
had  been  developed.  England  had  been  unpre- 
pared for  any  war  on  land,  and  therefore  had 
no  considerable  army  to  throw  into  the  fighting 
in  Europe  at  the  beginning  of  hostilities.  She 
had,  however,  been  rapidly  recruiting  and  train- 
ing forces  at  home,  and  in  the  early  months  of 
1915  the  time  had  come  when  these  troops  and 
their  supplies  were  ready  to  be  transported  to 
France.  Large  quantities  of  munitions,  as  we 
have  seen,  were  soon  to  come  from  America, 
and  German  trade  had  been  cut  off.  For  all 
these  reasons,  therefore,  Germany  was  anxious 


THE  LU  SI  TAN  I A  163 

to  adopt  measures  which  would  prevent  this 
increase  of  strength  from  making  itself  felt, 
and  also,  if  possible,  to  destroy  England's  con- 
trol of  the  seas  and  to  open  German  ports  again 
to  the  German  navy  and  to  the  merchant  fleets 
of  neutrals. 

The  simplest  solution  of  her  problem  she 
saw  in  an  extension  of  the  use  of  submarines. 
She  knew  perfectly  that  this  could  not  be  done 
as  she  expected  to  do  it,  in  conformity  with 
international  law,  but,  as  Secretary  Zimmer- 
mann  assured  Ambassador  Gerard,  she  did  not 
believe  that  neutral  Powers  would  go  to  war 
because  of  these  violations.  Furthermore,  she 
believed  that  this  inhuman  method  of  warfare 
would  bring  speedy  success,  and,  as  usual,  she 
relied  upon  that  success  for  her  justification. 
Her  decision,  because  of  its  shocking  character, 
startled  us  at  the  time  and  struck  us  as  some- 
thing sudden.  We  must  remember  that  it 
was  not  so,  that  she  had  calculated  the  chances 
and  begun  a  considerable  time  before  to  prepare 
and  increase  her  submarines  and  her  bases. 
Von  Tirpitz  had  given  out  an  interview  late  in 
1914,  which  indicated  that  the  plans  had  been 


164  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

matured.    He  merely  desired  to  prepare  Amer- 
ican sentiment  for  what  was  coming. 

On  the  4th  of  February,  1915,  Germany  issued 
the  following  proclamation: 

"1.  The  waters  surrounding  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland  including  the  whole  English 
channel  are  hereby  declared  to  be  war  zone. 
On  and  after  the  18th  of  February,  1915,  every 
enemy  merchant  ship  found  in  the  said  war 
zone  will  be  destroyed  without  its  being  al- 
ways possible  to  avert  the  dangers  threatening 
the  crews  and  passengers  on  that  account. 

"2.  Even  neutral  ships  are  exposed  to  danger 
in  the  war  zone  as  in  view  of  the  misuse  of  neu- 
tral flags  ordered  on  January  31  by  the  British 
Government  and  of  the  accidents  of  naval  war, 
it  can  not  always  be  avoided  to  strike  even  neu- 
tral ships  in  attacks  that  are  directed  at  enemy 
ships. 

"3.  Northward  navigation  around  the  Shet- 
land Islands,  in  the  eastern  waters  of  the  North 
Sea,  and  in  a  strip  of  not  less  than  30  miles 
width  along  the  Netherlands  coast  is  in  no 
danger."* 

This  amazing  document  was  communicated 
to  our  government  accompanied  by  a  memo- 
randum respecting  the  "retaliatory  measures 

*  American  Journal  of  International  Law,  Special  Supplement,  July. 
1915,  p.  84. 


THE  LUSITANIA  165 

which  had  been  rendered  necessary"  by  the 
methods  employed  by  England.  In  effect,  it 
amounted  to  a  series  of  grave  accusations 
against  all  neutrals  including  ourselves. 

It  began  by  saying  that  Great  Britain's  con- 
duct of  commercial  warfare  had  been  a  mockery, 
complained  of  England's  modification  of  the 
Declaration  of  London,  her  interpretation  of 
contraband,  her  taking  German  reservists  off 
neutral  vessels,  her  establishing  of  a  blockade 
not  in  accordance  with  law,  and  her  attempt 
to  starve  Germany.  It  went  on  to  say:  "The 
neutral  Powers  have  in  the  main  acquiesced 
in  the  measures  of  the  British  Government; 
in  particular  they  have  not  been  successful  in 
securing  the  release  by  the  British  Government 
of  the  German  subjects  and  German  merchan- 
dise illegally  taken  from  their  vessels.  To  a 
certain  extent  they  have  even  contributed 
toward  the  execution  of  the  measures  adopted 
by  England  in  defiance  of  the  principle  of  the 
freedom  of  the  seas  by  prohibiting  the  export 
and  transit  of  goods  destined  for  peaceable 
purposes  in  Germany,  thus  evidently  yielding 
to  pressure  by  England." 


166  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

To  make  neutrals  participes  criminis,  and 
to  blame  them  for  not  having  done  what  Ger- 
many by  force  of  arms  had  been  unable  to  do, 
represented  a  new  departure  in  international 
law  and  a  new  aspect  of  German  psychology. 

She  further  explained  her  purposes  as  fol- 
lows: 

"To  this  end  it  will  endeavor  to  destroy, 
after  February  18  next,  any  merchant  vessels 
of  the  enemy  which  present  themselves  at  the 
seat  of  war  above  indicated,  although  it  may 
not  always  be  possible  to  avert  the  dangers 
which  may  menace  persons  and  merchandise. 
Neutral  powers  are  accordingly  forewarned  not 
to  continue  to  entrust  their  crews,  passengers, 
or  merchandise  to  such  vessels.  Their  atten- 
tion is  furthermore  called  to  the  fact  that  it 
is  of  urgency  to  recommend  to  their  own  vessels 
to  steer  clear  of  these  waters.  It  is  true  that 
the  German  Navy  has  received  instructions 
to  abstain  from  all  violence  against  neutral 
vessels  recognizable  as  such;  but  in  view  of 
the  hazards  of  war,  and  of  the  misuse  of  the 
neutral  flag  ordered  by  the  British  Government, 
it  will  not  always  be  possible  to  prevent  a  neu- 
tral vessel  from  becoming  the  victim  of  an  at- 
tack intended  to  be  directed  against  a  vessel 
of  the  enemy."* 

*  American  Journal  of  International  Law,  Special  Supplement,  July, 
1915,  p.  85. 


THE  LUSITANIA  167 

The  flying  of  a  neutral  flag  by  a  belligerent, 
fortunately  or  unfortunately,  has  always  been 
permitted  by  the  law  of  nations.  The  United 
States,  when  at  war,  has  done  so,*  and  the  Ger- 
man Prize  Ordinance  of  August  3,  1914,  sanc- 
tioned this  practice,  and  her  men-of-war  and  her 
own  raiders  had  used  it.f  Great  Britain  had 
employed  the  same  ruse  de  guerre,  and  the  cap- 
tain of  the  Lusitania,  on  leaving  England  had, 
at  the  request  'of  Americans  aboard,  hoisted 

*  On  May  22,  1898,  during  the  Spanish-American  War,  two  American 
war-ships  flying  the  Spanish  flag  put  into  Guantanamo  Bay,  in  Cuba. 
The  United  States  in  the  Naval  War  Code  of  June  27,  1900  (General 
Orders  551)  forbade  the  use  of  false  colors.  American  naval  officers 
reported  against  the  practice  in  1903,  though,  "pending  some  interna- 
tional agreement"  on  the  use  of  false  colors,  they  felt  that  the  United 
States  would  be  at  a  disadvantage  in  accepting  the  action  of  1900. 
This  action  was  therefore  revoked  in  February,  1904,  and  there  has 
as  yet  been  no  international  agreement. 

t  Article  82  of  the  German  Prize  Ordinance  reads:  "  During  a  pursuit 
the  war  ensign  need  not  be  displayed,  and  the  use  of  any  merchant 
flag  is  permitted."  Perels,  the  German  author  of  "Das  Internationale 
Offentliche  Seerecht  der  Gegenwart"  (1903)  says,  "It  is  not  to  be  re- 
garded as  forbidden  in  all  circumstances,"  but  holds  that  the  proper 
flag  must  be  displayed  before  going  into  action  or  exercising  the  right 
of  visit  and  search  (p.  182).  Perels  was  the  greatest  German  authority 
and  counsellor  to  the  German  admiralty.  His  successor  in  this  post, 
Schramm,  in  his  "Das  Prisenrecht  in  Seiner  Neuesten  Gestalt"  (1913), 
holds  (p.  294)  according  to  the  laws  of  war  the  regular  war-ships  are 
entitled  to  resort  to  war  ruses,  such,  for  instance,  as  the  flying  of  a  false 
national  flag.  It  was  certainly  not  the  immorality  of  the  procedure 
which  distressed  the  Germans.  The  use  of  a  false  flag  is  forbidden 
in  warfare  on  land.  Yet  Germany  has  repeatedly  given  her  aeroplanes 
the  insignia  of  her  enemies,  and  has  dressed  her  soldiers  in  their  uni- 
forms. A  number  of  Germans  dressed  in  French  uniforms  were  killed 
by  the  Americans  when  the  Germans  crossed  the  Marne  in  July,  1918. 


168  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

our  flag.  We  as  a  government  were  in  no  wise 
responsible  and,  indeed,  the  German  course 
was  admitted  to  be  an  act  of  retaliation  which 
might  be  justified  if  its  effects  were  confined 
to  the  guilty  enemy,  but  which,  as  a  well-known 
authority  has  said,  "was  certainly  not  permis- 
sible against  neutrals  and  will  not,  it  is  believed, 
be  permissible  until  the  distinction  between 
guilt  and  innocence  is  destroyed." 

To  this  communication,  therefore,  we  re- 
plied on  February  10,  calling  attention  to  the 
danger  of  such  illegal  policy  if  it  should  destroy 
an  American  vessel  or  cause  the  death  of  an 
American  citizen.  Our  protest  explained  the 
right  of  belligerents  in  dealing  with  neutral 
vessels  as  follows: 

"It  is  of  course  not  necessary  to  remind  the 
German  Government  that  the  sole  right  of  a 
belligerent  in  dealing  with  neutral  vessels  on 
the  high  seas  is  limited  to  visit  and  search, 
unless  a  blockade  is  proclaimed  and  effectively 
maintained,  which  this  Government  does  not 
understand  to  be  proposed  in  this  case.  To 
declare  or  exercise  a  right  to  attack  and  destroy 
any  vessel  entering  a  prescribed  area  of  the 
high  seas  without  first  certainly  determining 
its  belligerent  nationality  and  the  contraband 


THE  LUSITANIA  169 

character  of  its  cargo  would  be  an  act  so  un- 
precedented in  naval  warfare  that  this  Govern- 
ment is  reluctant  to  believe  that  the  Imperial 
Government  of  Germany  in  this  case  contem- 
plates it  as  possible.  The  suspicion  that  enemy 
ships  are  using  neutral  flags  improperly  can 
create  no  just  presumption  that  all  ships  trav- 
ersing a  prescribed  area  are  subject  to  the  same 
suspicion.  It  is  to  determine  exactly  such  ques- 
tions that  this  Government  understands  the 
right  of  visit  and  search  to  have  been  recog- 
nized." * 

We  furthermore  reminded  Germany  that 
we  were  open  to  none  of  the  accusations  which 
had  been  made  against  neutrals  and  concluded 
as  follows: 

"If  such  a  deplorable  situation  should  arise, 
the  Imperial  German  Government  can  readily 
appreciate  that  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  would  be  constrained  to  hold  the  Im- 
perial German  Government  to  a  strict  account- 
ability for  such  acts  of  their  naval  authorities 
and  to  take  any  steps  it  might  be  necessary  to 
take  to  safeguard  American  lives  and  property 
and  to  secure  to  American  citizens  the  full  en- 
joyment of  their  acknowledged  rights  on  the 
high  seas."  f 

*  American  Journal  of  International  Law,  Special  Supplement,  July. 
1915,  pp.  86-87. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  87. 


170  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

At  the  same  time,  however,  though  we  were 
not  bound  to  do  so,  we  sent  a  note  to  Great 
Britain  asking  that  it  refrain  from  using  the 
American  flag.  The  speedy  reply  of  the  Ger- 
man Government,  on  February  16,  indicated 
that  they  had  considered  all  these  points  in 
advance  of  their  decision,  and  it  merely  insisted 
again  on  its  own  innocence  and  the  guilt  of 
England,  and  cited  the  case  of  the  Wilhelmina, 
in  which  an  American  vessel  carrying  grain  to 
Germany  was  held  up  by  the  British  and 
brought  before  a  prize-court.  Incidentally  it 
might  be  said  that  we  had  already  protested 
the  Wilhelmina  case,  and  it  was  no  worse,  in- 
deed not  so  serious,  a  violation  of  our  rights 
as  Germany  was  guilty  of  when  she  sank  the 
William  F.  Frye  and  her  cargo,  as  we  have  al- 
ready explained.  The  accusations  against  neu- 
trals were  repeated  and  a  protest  was  added 
against  our  trade  in  munitions: 

"The  German  Government  have  not  in  con- 
sequence made  any  charge  of  formal  breach 
of  neutrality.  The  German  Government  can 
not,  however,  do  otherwise,  especially  in  the 
interest  of  absolute  clearness  in  the  relations 


THE  LUSITANIA  171 

between  the  two  countries,  than  to  emphasize 
that  they,  in  common  with  the  public  opinion 
in  Germany,  feel  themselves  placed  at  a  great 
disadvantage  through  the  fact  that  the  neutral 
powers  have  hitherto  achieved  no  success  or 
only  an  unmeaning  success  in  their  assertion 
of  the  right  to  trade  with  Germany,  acknowl- 
edged to  be  legitimate  by  international  law, 
whereas  they  make  unlimited  use  of  their  right 
to  tolerate  trade  in  contraband  with  England 
and  our  other  enemies.  Conceded  that  it  is 
the  formal  right  of  neutrals  not  to  protect  their 
legitimate  trade  with  Germany  and  even  to 
allow  themselves  knowingly  and  willingly  to 
be  induced  by  England  to  restrict  such  trade, 
it  is  on  the  other  hand  not  less  their  good  right, 
although  unfortunately  not  exercised,  to  stop 
trade  in  contraband,  especially  the  trade  in 
arms,  with  Germany's  enemies." 

It  furthermore  explained  that  it  would  plant 
mines  and  could  not  therefore  be  responsible 
for  neutrals  sunk  in  this  way  in  the  danger 
zone,  and  therefore  suggested  that  "the  safest 
method  of  doing  this  is  to  stay  away  from  the 
area  of  maritime  war.  Neutral  ships  entering 
the  closed  waters  in  spite  of  this  announcement, 
given  so  far  in  advance,  and  which  seriously 

*  American  Journal  of  International  Law,  Special  Supplement,  July, 
1915.  p.  92. 


172  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

impair  the  accomplishment  of  the  military 
purpose  against  England,  bear  their  own  re- 
sponsibility for  any  unfortunate  accidents.  The 
German  Government  on  their  side  expressly 
decline  all  responsibility  for  such  accidents 
and  their  consequences." 

In  addition  it  recommended  that,  if  we  en- 
tered the  zone  at  all,  "the  United  States  con- 
voy their  ships  carrying  peaceful  cargoes," 
though  it  could  not,  even  so,  guarantee  us 
from  the  danger  of  mines. 

These  were  indeed  strange  statements  coming 
from  a  Power  which  claimed  to  be  contending 
for  the  freedom  of  the  seas. 

The  United  States  took  this  in  better  part 
than  might  have  been  expected,  and  in  its  sin- 
cere desire  to  clear  up  a  situation  so  fraught 
with  dangerous  possibilities,  on  February  20 
tried  to  effect  an  arrangement  between  the 
belligerents,  but  was  unsuccessful.  Germany 
refused  to  give  up  the  mines  and  Great  Britain 
then  refused  to  make  the  concessions  demanded 
of  her.  The  whole  situation  is  summed  up  in 

*  American  Journal  of  International  Law,  Special  Supplement,  July, 
1915,  p.  93. 


THE  LUSITANIA  173 

a  declaration  of  the  French  Government  com- 
municated to  us  on  March  30: 


"  Germany  has  declared  the  English  Channel, 
the  northern  and  western  coasts  of  France, 
as  well  as  the  waters  surrounding  the  British 
Isles  to  be  a  'war  zone/  and  has  officially  pro- 
claimed that  'all  enemy  vessels  found  in  this 
zone  will  be  destroyed  and  that  neutral  vessels 
there  might  be  in  danger.'  This  is  in  reality 
a  claim  to  torpedo  at  sight,  without  regard  for 
the  safety  of  crew  and  passengers,  any  mer- 
chant vessel  under  any  flag.  As  it  is  not  in 
the  power  of  the  German  Admiralty  to  main- 
tain any  vessel  on  the  surface  of  these  waters, 
this  attack  can  only  be  carried  out  by  submarine 
means.  International  law  and  the  custom  of 
nations  regarding  attack  against  commerce  have 
always  presumed  that  the  first  duty  of  the  cap- 
tor of  a  merchant  vessel  is  to  take  it  before  a 
prize  court  where  it  can  be  judged,  where  the 
regularity  of  the  capture  can  be  determined, 
and  where  neutrals  may  recover  their  cargo. 
To  sink  a  captured  vessel  is  in  itself  a  ques- 
tionable act,  to  which  recourse  can  be  had  only 
under  extraordinary  circumstances  and  after 
measures  have  been  taken  to  assure  the  safety 
of  all  the  crew  and  the  passengers,  if  there  are 
passengers  on  board.  The  responsibility  of 
distinguishing  between  neutral  and  enemy  cargo, 
as  well  as  between  neutral  and  enemy  vessels, 
is  manifestly  incumbent  on  the  attacking  vessel, 


174  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

whose  duty  it  is  to  verify  the  status  and  the 
character  of  the  vessel  and  its  cargo,  as  well  as 
to  place  all  papers  in  safety,  before  sinking  or 
even  making  a  capture.  Also  the  duty  toward 
humanity  consisting  in  assuring  the  safety  of 
crews  of  merchant  vessels,  whether  they  are 
neutral  or  enemy,  is  an  obligation  for  every 
belligerent.  It  is  on  this  basis  that  all  previous 
discussions  of  the  law  aiming  at  regulating  the 
conduct  of  war  at  sea  have  been  conducted."* 

Up  to  this  point  of  the  war  we  had  been  com- 
pelled to  protest  to  both  England  and  Ger- 
many. The  English  violations,  however,  had 
been  due  to  what  we  believed  unwarranted 
extensions  of  existing  rights,  and  it  is  safe  to 
say  that  in  no  case  had  English  violations 
caused  or  threatened  the  lives  of  Americans. 
Germany  on  her  own  admission  was  departing 
from  international  law  and  entering  upon  a 
policy  which  must  necessarily  either  cut  off 
recognized  neutral  rights  to  travel  on  the  seas 
or  result  in  the  death  of  neutral  citizens.  Our 
country  was,  therefore,  in  a  state  of  keen  tension 
which  increased  when  an  American  citizen  was 
drowned  in  the  sinking  of  the  Falaba,  when 

*  American  Journal  of  International  Law,  Special  Supplement,  July, 
1915,  p.  116. 


THE  LUSITANIA  175 

three  more  died  as  the  result  of  the  torpedoing 
of  the  Gulflight,  and  when  the  American  vessel 
dishing,  plainly  flying  the  American  flag,  was 
bombed  by  a  German  seaplane. 

In  spite  of  such  premonitions  the  American 
people  learned  in  horrified  amazement  that 
on  May  7  the  great  passenger  steamer  Lusi- 
tania  had  been  sunk  with  1,959  people  on  board, 
without  warning,  ten  miles  off  the  Irish  coast. 
To  make  sure  of  his  work,  the  submarine  cap- 
tain had  fired  two  torpedoes  and  the  great  liner 
sank  rapidly.  It  was  impossible  for  many  of 
the  passengers  and  crew  to  take  to  the  boats, 
and  as  the  ship  settled  and  sank  many  of  the 
boats  which  had  been  launched  were  broken 
or  capsized. 

Notwithstanding  what  had  been  reported  of 
German  conduct  in  Belgium  and  invaded  France, 
very  few  Americans  had  believed  that  any  sol- 
dier or  sailor  would  ever  have  dreamed  of  carry- 
ing out  in  such  fashion  the  threat  which  had 
been  made  by  Germany.  In  consequence  the 
vessel  had  carried  a  large  number  of  women 
and  children,  and  1,182  non-combatants  lost 
their  lives.  The  scene  was  indescribable.  After 


176  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

twenty-five  centuries  yEschylus's  sad  phrase  had 
become  truth,  "  the  very  seas  were  flowering  with 
the  dead."  To  add  to  the  pity  of  it  all,  there 
were  among  the  lost,  in  spite  of  the  chivalry 
of  the  passengers,  286  women  and  94  children. 
For  days  the  drowned  who  could  be  recovered 
from  the  boats  or  the  sea  were  brought  to  the 
neighboring  coast  towns,  while  Americans  anx- 
iously scanned  the  lists  for  the  names  of  friends 
to  learn  finally  that  124  of  our  citizens,  who 
had  been  guilty  of  no  offense  whatever,  and 
were  exercising  a  right  accorded  to  all,  had 
been  murdered. 

It  is  difficult  to  express  the  wave  of  feeling 
which  passed  through  the  American  people, 
or  to  tell  whether  sorrow  for  the  dead,  horror 
at  the  deed,  or  righteous  indignation  against 
the  perpetrators  prevailed. 

The  least  that  can  be  said  is  that  the  act  was 
universally  condemned  by  the  American  and 
the  neutral  press  and  public.  Perhaps  for- 
tunately, Congress  was  not  in  session,  and  Con- 
gress alone  can  declare  war.  Many  believed 
that  an  extra  session  should  have  been  imme- 
diately called  for  this  purpose.  In  the  mean- 


THE  LUSITANIA  177 

time  all  sorts  of  suggestions  were  made:  that 
we  seize  Germany's  interned  merchant  and 
naval  fleet,  that  we  immediately  sever  diplo- 
matic and  commercial  relations,  that  we  refuse 
longer  to  safeguard  Germany's  interest  in  bel- 
ligerent countries,  that  we  mobilize  the  fleet 
and  form  a  league  of  neutral  nations.  Had 
the  President  or  his  advisers  had  the  slightest 
desire  for  war,  the  state  of  the  country  was  such 
that  it  could  undoubtedly  have  been  declared. 
Nations  had  gone  to  war  for  far  less,  and  we 
had  announced  that  we  would  hold  the  Ger- 
man Government  to  "strict  accountability." 

The  country  was,  however,  held  in  check 
by  the  calmness  and  self-possession  of  the  Presi- 
dent who  did  not  want  war,  had  not  wanted 
it,  and  was  not  to  enter  upon  it  until  there  was 
no  possible  alternative. 

To  understand  the  situation  we  must  see 
for  a  moment  how  Germany  took  the  news. 
It  certainly  came  as  no  surprise  to  her  rulers. 
A  medal  was  struck  off  to  commemorate  this 
German  success,  and  it  is  a  curious  fact  that 
that  medal  bears  the  date  not  of  May  7,  but 
May  5.  This  may  have  been  due  to  error  of 


178  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

the  artist,  but  it  is  probable  that  it  had  been 
calculated  that  the  Lusitania  would  be  sunk 
on  that  date  and  that,  with  German  thorough- 
ness, the  medal  had  been  prepared  in  advance. 

A  Berlin  despatch  to  the  Exchange  Telegraph 
via  Amsterdam  ran:  "The  Emperor  drove  to 
the  Ministry  of  Marine  to-day  for  a  confer- 
ence with  Admiral  von  Tirpitz.  The  greatest 
enthusiasm  was  displayed  here  over  the  sink- 
ing of  the  Lusitania,  demonstrations  being 
held  before  the  government  buildings.  The 
sinking  of  the  Lusitania  has  made  the  Germans 
forget  Italy."  (Italy  had  just  issued  demands 
upon  Austria  which  were  to  result  in  war.) 

Count  von  Reventlow  announced  that: 

"It  is  the  American  Government's  own  fault 
if  it  did  not  take  Germany's  war  zone  declara- 
tion seriously  enough." 

The  Kolnische  Volkszeitung  of  May  10,  1915, 
declared: 

"The  sinking  of  the  Lusitania  is  a  success 
for  our  submarines  which  must  be  placed  be- 
side the  greatest  achievements  in  the  naval 
war.  .  .  .  The  sinking  of  the  great  British 
steamer  is  a  success  the  moral  significance  of 


THE  LUSITANIA  179 

which  is  still  greater  than  the  material  success. 
With  joyful  pride  we  contemplate  this  latest 
deed  of  our  Navy,  and  it  will  not  be  the  last." 

The  city  of  Magdeburg  distinguished  itself 
by  proposing  to  honor  the  actual  murderers. 
From  that  place,  on  May  19,  came  the  news 
that  a  committee  had  been  formed  for  the  pur- 
pose of  collecting  money  as  a  national  gift  for 
the  officers  and  crew  of  the  submarine  which 
sent  the  Lusitania  to  the  bottom  and  slaugh- 
tered so  many  defenseless  men,  women,  and 
children  of  many  nations.* 

The  German  press  which  unanimously  sup- 
ported where  it  did  not  applaud  its  govern- 
ment laid  the  blame  on  England  or  upon 
America  itself,  and  felt  in  any  case  that  Ger- 
many had  been  completely  justified  by  the  fact 
that  the  following  notice  had  appeared  in  the 
New  York  papers: 

"NOTICE 

"TRAVELERS  intending  to  embark  on  the 
Atlantic  voyage  are  reminded  that  a  state  of 
war  exists  between  Germany  and  her  allies 
and  Great  Britain  and  her  allies;  that  the  zone 

*  "Murder  at  Sea,"  by  A.  Hurd,  p.  14. 


180  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

of  war  includes  the  waters  adjacent  to  the  Brit- 
ish Isles;  that,  in  accordance  with  formal  notice 
given  by  the  Imperial  German  Government, 
vessels  flying  the  flag  of  Great  Britain,  or  of 
any  of  her  allies,  are  liable  to  destruction  in 
those  waters  and  that  travellers  sailing  in  the 
war  zone  on  ships  of  Great  Britain  or  her  allies 
do  so  at  their  own  risk." 

This  was  an  astounding  document  to  have 
issued  from  an  embassy,  for  it  amounted  to  a 
direct  appeal  on  the  part  of  a  foreign  ambas- 
sador from  our  government  to  the  American 
people.  In  the  previous  negotiations  we  have 
seen  that  the  President  had  refused  to  recognize 
the  war  zone  proclaimed  by  Germany,  and 
this  procedure  was  parallel  to  that  for  which 
Citizen  Genet  had  been  dismissed  in  the  in- 
fancy of  our  republic.  It  was  an  affront  direct. 
This  notice  had  appeared  the  morning  of  the 
Lusitanicfs  sailing  and  most  Americans  did 
not  believe  that  it  could  be  a  bona  fide  com- 
munication from  an  ambassador.  But  it  is 
no  justification  for  murder,  to  have  issued  a 
warning  and  Germany's  notice  from  the  em- 
bassy did  not  excuse,  it  merely  officially  con- 
firmed her  guilt;  it  proved  premeditation. 
When  excited  groups  of  reporters  crowded 


THE  LUSITANIA  181 

around  the  German  ambassador,  who  was  at 
that  time  in  New  York,  and  told  him  that  as 
over  one  hundred  Americans  had  been  killed, 
the  American  people  thought  he  ought  to  make 
a  statement,  Von  Bernstorff  shouted:  "Let  'em 
think!"  Bernard  Dernburg  further  helped 
to  excite  public  opinion  by  justifying  the  act; 
as  a  result  of  which  he  made  himself  impos- 
sible and  either  on  his  own  motion  or  by  re- 
quest, returned  to  Germany.  Secretary  of 
War  Garrison  postponed  his  trip  to  Alabama 
and  remained  in  Washington.  No  one  seemed 
more  deliberate  or  calm  than  the  President, 
and  on  the  following  day  he  kept  his  engage- 
ment to  deliver  an  address  in  Philadelphia. 
His  attitude  did  much  to  relieve  the  tension 
and  his  first  Lusitania  note  which  was  des- 
patched on  May  13,  was  received  with  general 
satisfaction  by  the  country,  which  was  deter- 
mined that  America  should  not  be  terrorized 
into  submission.  The  basis  of  America's  pre- 
vious protests  was  repeated  and  the  note  con- 
cluded : 

"The  Government  of  the  United  States, 
therefore,  desires  to  call  the  attention  of  the 
Imperial  German  Government  with  the  ut- 


182  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

most  earnestness  to  the  fact  that  the  objection 
to  their  present  method  of  attack  against  the 
trade  of  their  enemies  lies  in  the  practical  im- 
possibility of  employing  submarines  in  the  de- 
struction of  commerce  without  disregarding 
those  rules  of  fairness,  reason,  justice,  and  hu- 
manity which  all  modern  opinion  regards  as 
imperative.  It  is  practically  impossible  for 
the  officers  of  a  submarine  to  visit  a  merchant- 
man at  sea  and  examine  her  papers  and  cargo. 
It  is  practically  impossible  for  them  to  make 
a  prize  of  her;  and,  if  they  cannot  put  a  prize 
crew  on  board  of  her,  they  cannot  sink  her  with- 
out leaving  her  crew  and  all  on  board  of  her 
to  the  mercy  of  the  sea  in  her  small  boats. 
These  facts,  it  is  understood,  the  Imperial  Ger- 
man Government  frankly  admit.  We  are 
informed  that  in  the  instances  of  which  we 
have  spoken  time  enough  for  even  that  poor 
measure  of  safety  was  not  given,  and  in  at  least 
two  of  the  cases  cited  not  so  much  as  a  warning 
was  received.  Manifestly  submarines  cannot 
be  used  against  merchantmen,  as  the  last  few 
weeks  have  shown,  without  an  inevitable  vio- 
lation of  many  sacred  principles  of  justice  and 
humanity. 

"American  citizens  act  within  their  indis- 
putable rights  in  taking  their  ships  and  in 
travelling  wherever  their  legitimate  business 
calls  them  upon  the  high  seas,  and  exercise 
those  rights  in  what  should  be  the  well-justified 
confidence  that  their  lives  will  not  be  endan- 
gered by  acts  done  in  clear  violation  of  uni- 


THE  LUSITANIA  183 

versally  acknowledged  international  obligations, 
and  certainly  in  the  confidence  that  their  own 
Government  will  sustain  them  in  the  exercise 
of  their  rights. 

"It  (the  United  States  Government)  con- 
fidently expects,  therefore,  that  the  Imperial 
German  Government  will  disavow  the  acts  of 
which  the  Government  of  the  United  States 
complains,  that  they  will  make  reparation  so 
far  as  reparation  is  possible  for  injuries  which 
are  without  measure,  and  that  they  will  take 
immediate  steps  to  prevent  the  recurrence  of 
anything  so  obviously  subversive  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  warfare  for  which  the  Imperial  Ger- 
man Government  have  in  the  past  so  wisely 
and  so  firmly  contended. 

"The  Imperial  German  Government  will 
not  expect  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  to  omit  any  word  or  any  act  necessary 
to  the  performance  of  its  sacred  duty  of  main- 
taining the  rights  of  the  United  States  and  its 
citizens  and  of  safeguarding  their  free  exercise 
and  enjoyment." 

In  its  reply  the  German  Government  failed 
to  answer  our  note  but  attempted  to  make 
light  of  the  case  by  alleging  facts  of  which  we 
were  ignorant. 

"The  Government  of  the  United  States  pro- 
ceeds on  the  assumption  that  the  Lusitania 


184  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

is  to  be  considered  as  an  ordinary  unarmed 
merchant  vessel.  The  Imperial  Government 
begs  in  this  connection  to  point  out  that  the 
Lusitania  was  one  of  the  largest  and  fastest 
English  commerce  steamers,  constructed  with 
Government  funds  as  auxiliary  cruisers,  and 
is  expressly  included  in  the  navy  list  published 
by  British  Admiralty.  It  is  moreover  known 
to  the  Imperial  Government  from  reliable  in- 
formation furnished  by  its  officials  and  neutral 
passengers  that  for  some  time  practically  all 
the  more  valuable  English  merchant  vessels 
have  been  provided  with  guns,  ammunition, 
and  other  weapons,  and  reinforced  with  a  crew 
specially  practiced  in  manning  guns.  Accord- 
ing to  reports  at  hand  here,  the  Lusitania  when 
she  left  New  York  undoubtedly  had  guns  on 
board  which  were  mounted  under  decks  and 
masked.  .  .  .  Lastly,  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment must  specially  point  out  that  on  her  last 
trip  the  Lusitania,  as  on  earlier  occasions,  had 
Canadian  troops  and  munitions  on  board,  in- 
cluding no  less  than  5,400  cases  of  ammunition 
destined  for  the  destruction  of  brave  German 
soldiers  who  are  fulfilling  with  self-sacrifice 
and  devotion  their  duty  in  the  service  of  the 
Fatherland." 

These  statements  were  later  proved  untrue, 
though  the  German  embassy  hastened  to  pro- 
cure a  witness  through  Koenig,  head  of  the 
Hamburg-American  secret  service,  who  swore 


THE  LUSITANIA  185 

that  he  had  been  on  the  Lusitania  before  its 
departure  and  had  seen  guns  there.  His  testi- 
mony had  been  fabricated,  and  Koenig  and 
Bernstorff  were  probably  aware  of  the  fact, 
for  the  \ritness  was  later  convicted  of  perjury 
when  it  was  proved  that  he  had  not  been  on 
board  the  ressel;  and  the  collector  of  the  port 
who  had  inspected  the  Lusitania  before  her 
departure,  testified  that  she  had  neither  guns, 
ammunition  nor  troops  aboard  her. 

For  this  reason  our  government  forwarded 
a  second  note  on  June  9,  which  proved  the  Ger- 
man statements  mistaken  and  insisted  press- 
ingly  on  the  representations  of  the  first  note. 
It  brought  the  discussion  back  sharply  and 
pointedly  to  the  main  issue,  in  the  following 
terms: 


"Whatever  be  the  other  facts  regarding  the 
Lusitania,  the  principal  fact  is  that  a  great 
steamer,  primarily  and  chiefly  a  conveyance 
for  passengers,  and  carrying  more  than  a  thou- 
sand souls  who  had  no  part  or  lot  in  the  con- 
duct of  the  war,  was  torpedoed  and  sunk  with- 
out so  much  as  a  challenge  or  a  warning,  and 
that  men,  women,  and  children  were  sent  to 
their  death  in  circumstances  unparalleled  in 


186  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

modern  warfare.  The  fact  that  more  than 
one  hundred  American  citizens  were  among 
those  who  perished  made  it  the  duty  of  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  to  speak  of 
these  things  and  once  more,  with  solemn  em- 
phasis, to  call  the  attention  of  the  Imperial 
German  Government  to  the  grave  responsibil- 
ity which  the  Government  of  the  United  States 
conceives  that  it  has  incurred  in  this  tragic 
occurrence,  and  to  the  indisputable  principle 
upon  which  that  responsibility  rests.  The 
Government  of  the  United  States  is  contend- 
ing for  something  much  greater  than  mere  rights 
of  property  or  privileges  of  commerce.  It  is 
contending  for  nothing  less  high  and  sacred 
than  the  rights  of  humanity,  which  every 
Government  honors  itself  in  respecting  and 
which  no  Government  is  justified  in  resigning 
on  behalf  of  those  under  its  care  and  authority. 
Only  her  actual  resistance  to  capture  or  refusal 
to  stop  when  ordered  to  do  so  for  the  purpose 
of  visit  could  have  afforded  the  commander  of 
the  submarine  any  justification  for  so  much 
as  putting  the  lives  of  those  on  board  the  ship 
in  jeopardy." 

On  the  occasion  of  the  sending  of  this  note, 
Secretary  Bryan,  who  had  signed  our  first  com- 
munication, resigned  from  the  cabinet,  as  he 
was  not  in  sympathy  with  the  method  pursued, 
though  future  developments  convinced  the  pub- 


THE  LUSITANIA  187 

lie  of  the  accuracy  of  his  statement  issued  in 
explanation : 

"The  President  and  I  agree  in  purpose;  we 
desire  a  peaceful  solution  of  the  dispute  which 
has  arisen  between  the  United  States  and  Ger- 
many." 

Germany's  refusal  to  make  immediate  amends 
after  this  unparalleled  offense  would  have  made 
peace  impossible  had  this  not  been  the  case, 
for  in  spite  of  the  directness  of  our  second 
communication,  Berlin's  answer  of  July  8  was 
rambling  and  not  responsive.  It  insisted  on 
the  traditional  friendliness  of  Germany  to  the 
American  people;  reasserted  that  she  was 
waging  a  war  of  self-defense;  and  explained 
that  the  loss  of  life  could  hardly  be  chargeable 
to  her.  The  reason  for  the  rapid  sinking  of 
the  vessel  was  due  to  circumstances  of  a  very 
peculiar  kind,  especially  "the  presence  on  board 
of  large  quantities  of  highly  explosive  ma- 
terials." 

Her  inability  to  understand  the  issue  is  per- 
haps nowhere  more  strikingly  brought  out  than 
in  the  amazing  statement  that  "the  case  of 


188  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

the  Lusitania  shows  with  horrible  clearness  to 
what  jeopardizing  of  human  lives  the  manner 
of  conducting  war  employed  by  our  adver- 
saries leads."  One  might  imagine  that  the 
friendly  German  Government  had  been  join- 
ing the  United  States  in  a  protest  against  Brit- 
ish inhumanity  for  killing  a  hundred  Ameri- 
cans. It  then  proposed  two  methods  by  which 
Americans  could  pass  through  the  danger  zone, 
though  none  of  these  could  have  been  accepted 
without  surrendering  the  right  for  which  we 
contended. 

It  was  perfectly  plain  from  the  tenor  of  these 
two  replies  that  the  German  party  in  power 
was  committed  to  submarine  warfare,  and  that 
if  they  spared  Americans  at  all  it  would  be 
through  no  considerations  for  humanity  or 
international  law. 

The  American  rejoinder  brought  the  case 
up  again  sharply  and  strongly: 

"The  Government  of  the  United  States  is, 
however,  keenly  disappointed  to  find  that  the 
Imperial  German  Government  regards  itself 
as  in  large  degree  exempt  from  the  obligation 
to  observe  these  principles,  even  when  neutral 


THE  LUSITANIA  180 

vessels  are  concerned,  by  what  it  believes  the 
policy  and  practice  of  the  Government  of  Great 
Britain  to  be  in  the  present  war  with  regard 
to  neutral  commerce.  The  Imperial  German 
Government  will  readily  understand  that  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  cannot  dis- 
cuss the  policy  of  the  Government  of  Great 
Britain  with  regard  to  neutral  trade  except 
with  that  Government  itself,  and  that  it  must 
regard  the  conduct  of  other  belligerent  govern- 
ments as  irrelevant  to  any  discussion  with  the 
Imperial  German  Government  of  what  this 
Government  regards  as  grave  and  unjustifiable 
violations  of  the  rights  of  American  citizens 
by  German  naval  commanders.  .  .  . 

"If  a  belligerent  cannot  retaliate  against  an 
enemy  without  injuring  the  lives  of  neutrals, 
as  well  as  their  property,  humanity,  as  well  as 
justice  and  a  due  regard  for  the  dignity  of  neu- 
tral powers,  should  dictate  that  the  practice 
be  discontinued.  If  persisted  in  it  would  in 
such  circumstances  constitute  an  unpardonable 
offense  against  the  sovereignty  of  the  neutral 
nation  affected.  .  .  .  The  rights  of  neutrals 
in  time  of  war  are  based  upon  principle,  not 
upon  expediency,  and  the  principles  are  im-t 
mutable.  It  is  the  duty  and  obligation  of  bel- 
ligerents to  find  a  way  to  adapt  the  new  cir- 
cumstances to  them. 

"In  view  of  the  admission  of  illegality  made 
by  the  Imperial  Government  when  it  pleaded 
the  right  of  retaliation  in  defense  of  its  acts, 
and  in  view  of  the  manifest  possibility  of  con- 


190  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

forming  to  the  established  rules  of  naval  war- 
fare, the  Government  of  the  United  States  can- 
not believe  that  the  Imperial  Government  will 
longer  refrain  from  disavowing  the  wanton  act 
of  its  naval  commander  in  sinking  the  Lusi- 
tania  or  from  offering  reparation  for  the  Amer- 
ican lives  lost,  so  far  as  reparation  can  be  made 
for  a  needless  destruction  of  human  life  by  an 
illegal  act.  .  .  .  Friendship  itself  prompts  it 
to  say  to  the  Imperial  Government  that  repeti- 
tion by  the  commanders  of  German  naval  ves- 
sels of  acts  in  contravention  of  those  rights 
must  be  regarded  by  the  Government  of  the 
United  States,  when  they  affect  American  citi- 
zens, as  deliberately  unfriendly." 

This  note,  forceful  and  direct,  admitted  of 
no  misinterpretation  or  evasion.  After  the 
despatch  of  our  first  protest  a  conversation 
between  Secretary  of  State  Bryan  and  Am- 
bassador Dumba  had  been  interpreted  in  such 
a  way  as  to  make  the  Central  Powers  assume 
that  it  had  been  written  merely  to  satisfy  Amer- 
ican opinion.  Any  such  view  was  now  dispelled. 
The  American  position  was  very  clearly  out- 
lined and  the  phrase  "deliberately  unfriendly" 
in  diplomatic  correspondence  is  not  to  be  taken 
lightly.  Until  Germany's  reply  to  this  it  would 
be  taken  for  granted  that  the  American  posi- 


THE  LUSITANIA  191 

tion  was  accepted  and  so  the  case  stood  for 
some  time.  The  next  step  in  the  negotiations 
was  reached  when  Von  Bernstorff  in  a  note 
on  September  1,  1915,  informed  Secretary 
Lansing  that  he  had  received  the  following 
promise  from  his  government:  "Liners  will 
not  be  sunk  by  our  submarines  without  warn- 
ing and  with  safety  of  the  lives  of  the  non- 
combatants,  providing  that  the  latter  do  not 
try  to  escape  or  offer  resistance."  Further 
discussions  were  conducted  in  Washington  be- 
tween Bernstorff  and  Secretary  Lansing  and 
finally  Germany  offered  to  pay  an  indemnity 
for  the  death  of  the  Americans  on  the  Lusitania, 
which  she  "greatly  regretted,"  though  she  re- 
fused to  disavow  the  action  of  the  submarine 
commander  or  to  admit  that  his  act  was  il- 
legal. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  SUSSEX  AND  THE  SUBMARINES 

THE  promise  made  by  the  German  Govern- 
ment on  September  1,  1915,  to  the  effect 
that  Germany  would  not  sink  liners  without 
saving  the  lives  of  passengers  was  unfortunately 
a  characteristic  German  promise.  It  had  al- 
ready been  broken  before  we  knew  that  it  had 
ever  been  made.  For  on  August  19,  the  liner 
Arabic  had  been  sunk  without  warning  with 
the  loss  of  sixteen  lives,  two  of  which  were 
American,  and  Von  Bernstorff  had  been  naive 
enough  to  explain  that  the  promise  recorded 
above  had  already  been  made  by  his  govern- 
ment before  this  unfortunate  incident.  A  still- 
born promise  of  this  sort  was  not  calculated 
to  inspire  much  confidence,  and  the  situation 
in  America  generally  was  well  reflected  in  the 
statement  of  President  Wilson  on  September 
13, 1915,  to  a  delegation  of  Virginians  who  asked 
him  to  visit  the  Manassas  battle-field.  "We 
are  hoping  and  praying,"  said  he,  "that  the 

192 


THE  SUSSEX  AND  THE  SUBMARINES     19* 

skies  may  clear,  but  we  have  no  control  of  that 
on  this  side  of  the  water,  and  it  is  impossible 
to  predict  any  part  of  the  course  of  affairs." 
In  other  words,  the  issue  was  with  Germany. 
We  were  standing  for  the  maintenance  of  our 
rights  as  neutrals  and  would  continue  to  ob- 
serve strict  neutrality  unless  too  grossly  inter- 
fered with.  But  in  spite  of  the  gravity  of  the 
situation,  which  was  to  be  further  reflected  in 
the  President's  addresses  of  the  autumn,  he 
was  not  willing  to  allow  himself  to  be  rushed 
off  his  feet.  Nothing  illustrates  his  patience 
with  Germany  nor  his  calmness  more  clearly 
than  the  waiting  attitude  which  he  pursued 
under  repeated  minor  provocations,  springing 
from  Germany's  submarine  policy.  We  have 
seen  that  in  the  sinking  of  the  Arabic  two  Amer- 
icans were  lost;  in  the  case  of  the  Ancona,  No- 
vember 10,  eleven;  in  the  case  of  the  Persia, 
on  December  30,  two  (one  of  them  an  Amer- 
ican consular  official).  Besides  these  cases,  in 
which  lives  were  lost  either  as  the  result  of  Ger- 
man or  Austrian  torpedoing,  there  were  nu- 
merous other  cases  which  became  the  subject 
of  diplomatic  correspondence.  Yet  no  new 


194  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

issue  was  drawn  and  no  crisis  created,  through 
the  extreme  forbearance  of  our  government, 
which,  after  the  strong  and  explicit  language 
of  the  Lusitania  note,  was  regarded  by  many 
Americans  as  undignified  and  unworthy  of  a 
great  Power. 

A  new  question  was,  however,  to  be  raised 
with  regard  to  the  arming  of  merchantmen 
for  defensive  purposes.  This  right  had  always 
been  conceded  in  international  law,  as  we  may 
judge  from  the  following  statement  of  Doctor 
Hans  Wehberg,  a  German  authority:  ;'The 
enemy  merchant  ship  has  the  right  of  defense 
against  belligerent  attack,  and  this  right  it 
can  exercise  against  visit,  for  this  indeed  is 
the  first  act  of  capture.  The  attacked  merchant 
ship  can,  indeed,  itself  seize  the  overpowered 
war-ship  as  a  prize."  * 

This  naturally  implied  the  right  of  such  ves- 
sels to  arm,  a  right  which  had  been  given  them 
in  international  law  in  order  that  they  might 
defend  themselves  against  pirates,  and  also 
in  order  that  a  swift  yacht  carrying  a  few  men 

* American  Journal  of  International  Law,  p.  871. 


THE  SUSSEX  AND  THE  SUBMARINES     195 

and  mounting  a  gun  might  not  capture  great 
steamers  and  their  crews.  Such  a  rule  of  in- 
ternational law  could  not  be  changed,  except 
by  the  agreement  of  all  the  belligerents,  and 
our  government  attempted  to  bring  about  an 
abandonment  of  this  right  by  all  of  them  on 
condition  that  submarines  sink  no  vessels  save 
after  visit  and  search.  In  this  effort  Wash- 
ington was  unsuccessful  and  therefore,  nat- 
urally, firmly  took  its  stand  on  the  law  which 
permitted  such  defensive  armament.  Germany 
early  in  1916  announced  that  she  would  treat 
any  enemy  merchant  ships  bearing  arms  as 
ships  of  war.  This  was  a  clear  violation  of 
established  principle  in  case  merchant  vessels 
carried  a  gun  mounted  aft  for  defensive  pur- 
poses only.  But  in  February,  1916,  Represen- 
tative McLemore  introduced  into  Congress  a 
resolution  warning  Americans  not  to  travel 
upon  any  armed  merchant  ship  lest  they  lose 
their  lives  and  provoke  a  war.  This  was  in 
direct  contradiction  of  the  ruling  of  the  State 
Department,  which  had  announced  on  February 
15  that  commercial  vessels  had  the  right  to 
arm  defensively.  Those  in  favor  of  modifying 


196  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

international  law  in  the  interest  of  Germany, 
however,  supported  this  resolution,  though  the 
President  had  himself  indicated  his  personal 
opposition  to  it  on  the  ground  that  neutral 
subjects  have  a  clear  right  to  safe  travel  on  a 
merchant  vessel  of  a  belligerent  even  though 
the  ship  is  defensively  armed.  He  was  insisting, 
in  other  words,  that  no  belligerent  should  cause 
the  loss  of  American  lives  against  the  principles 
of  international  law.  Certain  political  groups 
tried  to  make  it  appear  that  the  country  was 
not  behind  the  President,  and  he  therefore  in- 
sisted that  the  matter  be  brought  to  a  vote,  and 
the  resolution  was  tabled  on  March  7,  1916, 
by  a  majority  of  276  to  152. 

But  scarcely  had  this  question  been  settled 
than  the  lawlessness  of  German  submarine  prac- 
tices was  illustrated  again  in  the  case  of  the 
passenger-boat  Sussex,  which  was  entirely  un- 
armed, mounting  not  even  a  signal-gun,  and 
used  on  the  English  Channel  route  from  Folke- 
stone to  Dieppe.  She  was  carrying  over  four 
hundred  passengers,  including  twenty-five  Amer- 
ican citizens,  and  was  attacked  on  March  24 
by  a  German  submarine,  about  three  o'clock 


THE  SUSSEX  AND  THE  SUBMARINES     19T 

in  the  afternoon,  killing  or  injuring  eighty  per- 
sons, two  of  whom  were  Americans.  The  ques- 
tions involved  were  clear.  They  had  all  been 
covered  in  the  Lusitania  case,  and  the  act  was 
in  evident  violation  of  the  German  promises 
then  made.  It  seemed  that  Germany  was  try- 
ing to  discover  whether  America  meant  what 
she  had  said,  and  Germany  had  probably  given 
her  instructions  to  submarine  commanders  in 
the  days  when  the  McLemore  resolution  was 
still  under  discussion,  and  when  a  part  of  the 
American  press  was  trying  to  prove  that  Amer- 
ican sentiment  was  not  behind  the  President.* 
This  seems  the  more  likely  as  Germany  had 
given  notice  that  after  March  1  she  would  sink 
all  armed  enemy  merchantmen  without  warn- 
ing, and  in  the  latter  half  of  March  a  number 
of  boats  with  Americans  on  board  were  tor- 
pedoed without  warning,  including  the  Eagle 
Point,  the  Englishman,  and  the  Manchester 
Engineer.  With  regard  to  the  Sussex,  there- 
fore, the  State  Department  immediately  di- 
rected an  inquiry  to  Berlin  to  ascertain  officially 

*  The  part  played  by  German  propagandists  in  this  connection  will 
be  discussed  in  Chapter  VIII. 


•198  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

whether  a  German  submarine  had  been  respon- 
sible for  the  sinking.  There  was  from  the  first 
no  real  doubt  as  to  this  question,  since  the  tor- 
pedo had  been  observed  as  it  approached  the 
vessel  and  the  captain  had  sharply  turned  the 
Sussex  in  an  unsuccessful  effort  to  avoid  it. 
Ambassador  Gerard  had  to  make  repeated  re- 
quests before  the  Foreign  Office  finally  procured 
from  the  admiralty  on  the  10th  of  April  a  re- 
port of  the  torpedoing.  The  report  was  of  the 
disingenuous  sort  which  we  had  unfortunately 
come  to  expect  from  the  German  Foreign  Of- 
fice. Its  denial  of  having  caused  the  sinking 
was  so  improbable  as  to  seem  grotesque  in  an 
official  communication.  The  statement  was 
designed  to  mislead,  since  the  facts  must  have 
been  known  by  the  German  navy,  as  the  sub- 
marine had  remained  in  the  neighborhood  after 
torpedoing  the  Sussex  and  had  even  attempted 
to  sink  another  British  vessel  which  was  seek- 
ing to  rescue  a  boat-load  of  the  survivors.  The 
denial  was  unavailing,  however,  for  though 
the  forward  part  of  the  Sussex  had  been  blown 
off  she  stayed  afloat  long  enough  to  be  towed 
to  Boulogne,  and  American  naval  officers  de- 


THE  SUSSEX  AND  THE  SUBMARINES     199 

tailed  to  investigate  discovered  in  the  vessel 
unmistakable  portions  of  the  exploded  Ger- 
man torpedo. 

After  establishing  the  facts  in  the  case, 
Washington  sent  a  note  to  Berlin,  pointing 
out  "that  the  Imperial  Government  has  failed 
to  appreciate  the  gravity  of  the  situation  which 
has  resulted,  not  alone  from  the  attack  on  the 
Sussex  but  from  the  whole  method  and  char- 
acter of  submarine  warfare,  as  disclosed  by 
the  unrestrained  practice  of  commanders  of 
German  undersea  craft  during  the  past  twelve 
months  and  more  in  the  indiscriminating  de- 
struction of  merchant  vessels  of  all  sorts,  na- 
tionalities, and  destinations."  It  continued  to 
give  a  resume  of  the  deliberate  and  wholesale 
method  of  destruction  which  had  become  more 
and  more  unmistakable  as  the  activities  of 
German  undersea  vessels  of  war  had  in  recent 
months  been  extended.  It  then  reviewed  the 
negotiations  between  the  United  States  and 
Germany,  and  showed  that  the  limitations 
which  the  Imperial  Government  had  promised 
to  put  upon  her  submarine  commanders  had 
been  regularly  ignored,  in  a  manner  which  the 


tOO  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

United  States  could  not  but  regard  as  wanton 
and  without  the  slightest  color  of  justification. 
"No  limit,"  it  continued,  "of  any  kind  has  in 
fact  been  set  to  their  indiscriminate  pursuit 
and  destroying  of  merchantmen  of  all  kinds 
and  nationalities,"  and  "the  roll  of  Americans 
who  have  lost  their  lives  upon  ships  thus  at- 
tacked and  destroyed  had  grown  from  month 
to>  month  until  the  ominous  toll  has  mounted 
into  the  hundreds."  The  note  then  concluded 
in  a  tone  and  with  statements  that  gave  it  the 
character  of  an  ultimatum. 

"The  Government  of  the  United  States  has 
been  very  patient.  At  every  stage  of  this  dis- 
tressing experience  of  tragedy  after  tragedy  it 
has  sought  to  be  governed  by  the  most  thought- 
ful consideration  of  the  extraordinary  circum- 
stances of  an  unprecedented  war  and  to  be 
guided  by  sentiments  of  very  genuine  friendship 
for  the  people  and  Government  of  Germany. 
It  has  accepted  the  successive  explanations  and 
assurances  of  the  Imperial  Government  as  of 
course  given  in  entire  sincerity  and  good  faith, 
and  has  hoped,  even  against  hope,  that  it  would 
prove  to  be  possible  for  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment so  to  order  and  control  the  acts  of  its  naval 
commanders  as  to  square  its  policy  with  the 
recognized  principles  of  humanity  as  embodied 


THE  SUSSEX  AND  THE  SUBMARINES     201 

in  the  law  of  nations.  It  has  made  every  al- 
lowance for  unprecedented  conditions  and  has 
been  willing  to  wait  until  the  facts  became  un- 
mistakable and  were  susceptible  of  only  one 
interpretation. 

"It  now  owes  it  to  a  just  regard  for  its  own 
rights  to  say  to  the  Imperial  Government  that 
that  time  has  come.  It  has  become  painfully 
evident  to  it  that  the  position  which  it  took 
at  the  very  outset  is  inevitable,  namely,  the 
use  of  submarines  for  the  destruction  of  an 
enemy's  commerce,  is,  of  necessity,  because 
of  the  very  character  of  the  vessels  employed 
and  the  very  methods  of  attack  which  their 
employment  of  course  involves,  utterly  incom- 
patible with  the  principles  of  humanity,  the 
long-established  and  incontrovertible  rights  of 
neutrals,  and  the  sacred  immunities  of  non- 
combatants. 

"If  it  is  still  the  purpose  of  the  Imperial 
Government  to  prosecute  relentless  and  indis- 
criminate warfare  against  vessels  of  commerce 
by  the  use  of  submarines  without  regard  to 
what  the  Government  of  the  United  States 
must  consider  the  sacred  and  indisputable  rules 
of  international  law  and  the  universally  recog- 
nized dictates  of  humanity,  the  Government 
of  the  United  States  is  at  last  forced  to  the  con- 
clusion that  there  is  but  one  course  it  can  pur- 
sue. Unless  the  Imperial  Government  should 
now  immediately  declare  and  effect  an  aban- 
donment of  its  present  methods  of  submarine 
warfare  against  passenger  and  freight-carrying 


202  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

vessels,  the  Government  of  the  United  States 
can  have  no  choice  but  to  sever  diplomatic 
relations  with  the  German  Empire  altogether. 
This  action  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  contemplates  with  the  greatest  reluc- 
tance but  feels  constrained  to  take  in  behalf 
of  humanity  and  the  rights  of  neutral  nations."* 

The  German  reply  of  May  4,  1916,  makes  a 
painful  impression.  Germany  had  evidently 
been  stung  to  the  quick,  for  her  tergiversating 
answer  to  our  inquiry  had  failed  to  shake  our 
certitude  of  her  responsibility,  and  the  plain 
statement  of  facts  in  our  review  of  the  situa- 
tion amounted  to  a  direct  accusation  of  in- 
humanity and  lawlessness.  Her  answer  was, 
therefore,  given  in  anger,  not  in  sorrow.  It  in- 
cluded, in  addition  to  paradoxical  protestations 
of  her  entire  innocence  and  of  her  humanity 
to  non-combatants,  accusations  against  the 
United  States  for  failing  to  accept  previous 
proposals  of  hers  and  especially  accusations 
against  British  inhumanity  and  our  own  par- 
tiality to  Britain.  But  it  evidently  recognized 
the  gravity  of  the  crisis  and  contained  the  fol- 
lowing promises : 

* 'American  Journal  of  International  Law,  Special  Supplement,  Octo- 
ber, 1916,  p.  190. 


THE   SUSSEX  AND   THE   SUBMARINES     203 

"The  German  Government,  guided  by  this 
idea,  notifies  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  that  the  German  naval  forces  have  re- 
ceived the  following  orders:  In  accordance 
with  the  general  principles  of  visit  and  search 
and  destruction  of  merchant  vessels  recognized 
by  international  law,  such  vessels,  both  within 
and  without  the  area  declared  as  naval  war 
zone,  shall  not  be  sunk  without  warning  and 
without  saving  human  lives,  unless  these  ships 
attempt  to  escape  or  offer  resistance. 

"But  neutrals  can  not  expect  that  Germany, 
forced  to  fight  for  her  existence,  shall,  for  the 
sake  of  neutral  interest,  restrict  the  use  of  an 
effective  weapon  if  her  enemy  is  permitted  to 
continue  to  apply  at  will  methods  of  warfare 
violating  the  rules  of  international  law.  Such 
a  demand  would  be  incompatible  with  the  char- 
acter of  neutrality,  and  the  German  Govern- 
ment is  convinced  that  the  Government  of 
the  United  States  does  not  think  of  making 
such  a  demand,  knowing  that  the  Government 
of  the  United  States  has  repeatedly  declared 
that  it  is  determined  to  restore  the  principle 
of  the  freedom  of  the  seas,  from  whatever 
quarter  it  is  violated."  * 

It  will  be  seen  that  Germany,  though  making 
a  definite  promise  not  to  sink  merchantmen 
without  warning  or  without  saving  human  lives, 

*  American  Journal  of  International  Law,  Special  Supplement,  Octo- 
ber, 1916,  pp.  198-199. 


204  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

attempted  to  make  this  promise  contingent  upon 
some  action  on  our  part  against  Great  Britain. 
This  would  have  made  it  possible  for  Ger- 
many to  reopen  the  question  in  case  negotiations 
between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain 
were  not  settled  to  her  satisfaction.  Washing- 
ton was,  however,  determined  that  this  danger- 
ous question  should  be  settled  finally  and  not 
conditionally.  In  the  last  paragraph  of  the 
American  reply,  therefore,  this  point  was  made 
an  issue,  and  any  such  interpretation  of  the 
promise  was  specifically  precluded.  The  com- 
munication was  sent  to  Berlin  on  May  8,  1916, 
and  read  as  follows: 

"DEPARTMENT  OP  STATE, 

WASHINGTON,  May  8,  1916. 

"You  are  instructed  to  deliver  to  the  Minis- 
ter of  Foreign  Affairs  a  communication  textually 
as  follows: 

"'The  note  of  the  Imperial  German  Govern- 
ment under  date  of  May  4,  1916,  has  received 
careful  consideration  by  the  Government  of  the 
United  States.  It  is  especially  noted,  as  indi- 
cating the  purpose  of  the  Imperial  Government 
as  to  the  future,  that  it  "is  prepared  to  do  its 
utmost  to  confine  the  operations  of  the  war  for 
the  rest  of  its  duration  to  the  fighting  forces  of 
the  belligerents,"  and  that  it  is  determined  to 
impose  upon  all  its  commanders  at  sea  the  limi- 


THE  SUSSEX  AND  THE  SUBMARINES     205 

tations  of  the  recognized  rules  of  international 
law  upon  which  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  insisted.  Throughout  the  months  which 
have  elapsed  since  the  Imperial  Government 
announced,  on  February  4,  1915,  its  submarine 
policy,  now  happily  abandoned,  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  has  been  constantly 
guided  and  restrained  by  motives  of  friendship 
in  its  patient  efforts  to  bring  to  an  amicable 
settlement  the  critical  questions  arising  from 
that  policy.  Accepting  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment's declaration  of  its  abandonment  of  the 
policy  which  has  so  seriously  menaced  the  good 
relations  between  the  two  countries,  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  will  rely  upon  a 
scrupulous  execution  henceforth  of  the  now 
altered  policy  of  the  Imperial  Government,  such 
as  will  remove  the  principal  danger  to  an  inter- 
ruption of  the  good  relations  existing  between 
the  United  States  and  Germany. 

"'The  Government  of  the  United  States  feels 
it  necessary  to  state  that  it  takes  it  for  granted 
that  the  Imperial  German  Government  does 
not  intend  to  imply  that  the  maintenance  of 
its  newly  announced  policy  is  in  any  way  con- 
tingent upon  the  course  or  result  of  diplomatic 
negotiations  between  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  and  any  other  belligerent  Gov- 
ernment, notwithstanding  the  fact  that  certain 
passages  in  the  Imperial  Government's  note  of 
the  4th  instant  might  appear  to  be  susceptible 
of  that  construction.  In  order,  however,  to 
avoid  any  possible  misunderstanding,  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  notifies  the  Impe- 


206  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

rial  Government  that  it  can  not  for  a  moment 
entertain,  much  less  discuss,  a  suggestion  that 
respect  by  German  naval  authorities  for  the 
rights  of  citizens  of  the  United  States  upon  the 
high  seas  should  in  any  way  or  in  the  slightest 
degree  be  made  contingent  upon  the  conduct  of 
any  other  Government  affecting  the  rights  of 
neutrals  and  noncombatants.  Responsibility  in 
such  matters  is  single,  not  joint;  absolute,  not 

LANSING."* 


relative.' 


If  Germany  was  unwilling  to  accept  this  in- 
terpretation it  would  be  necessary  for  her  to 
reopen  the  question.  She  did  not  do  so  and 
this,  therefore,  meant  that  she  accepted  the 
American  position. 

In  spite  of  past  experiences  the  United  States 
accepted  this  promise  in  good  faith.  The  spirit 
of  fairness  which  was  always  manifested  toward 
Germany  was  further  illustrated  in  the  ruling 
on  the  case  of  the  Deutschland,  the  large  com- 
mercial submarine  which  brought  two  cargoes 
of  goods  from  Germany  to  American  ports  in 
this  same  year. 

The  Allied  governments  sent  notes  to  the 
neutral  powers  stating  that,  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  it  was  impossible  to  distinguish  the  na- 

*  American  Journal  of  International  Law,  Special  Supplement,  Octo- 
ber, 1916,  pp.  199-200. 


THE  SUSSEX  AND  THE  SUBMARINES     207 

tionality  of  undersea  boats  or  to  determine 
whether  they  were  armed  or  unarmed,  bel- 
ligerent submarine  vessels,  whatever  the  pur- 
pose to  which  they  are  put,  be  excluded  from 
neutral  waters,  roadsteads,  and  ports.  This 
would  have  excluded  the  Deutschland  from  our 
harbors.  Instead  of  complying,  Secretary  Lan- 
sing ruled  in  favor  of  treating  the  submarine 
like  any  other  vessel,  since  "the  Government 
of  the  United  States  is  at  present  not  aware 
of  any  circumstances  concerning  the  use  of 
war  or  merchant  submarines  which  have  ren- 
dered the  existing  rules  of  international  law 
inapplicable  to  them."  Indeed,  we  made  no 
protest,  though  many  Americans  felt  we  should 
have  done  so  when,  on  October  7,  the  large  U-5S 
came  into  the  harbor  at  Newport,  and  a  day 
later  sank  three  British  and  two  neutral  steamers 
between  sixty  and  one  hundred  miles  from  the 
shore.  The  submarine  set  the  passengers,  of 
whom  many  were  Americans  returning  from 
Newfoundland,  adrift  in  small  boats,  in  which 
a  number  might  have  been  lost  but  for  the 
rescue  work  of  the  Newport  destroyer  flotilla. 
Here  the  situation  was  to  rest  without  any 
further  serious  crisis  until  early  in  1917. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
GERMAN  INTRIGUE 

IN  addition  to  Germany's  inhumane  conduct 
in  Belgium  and  on  the  seas,  there  was  yet 
another  factor  which  contributed  to  discredit 
her  in  American  eyes  and  to  force  America 
first  to  regard  her  with  suspicion  and  later  to 
distrust  her  in  word  and  act.  This  third  factor 
is  in  its  nature  more  or  less  imponderable,  and 
it  is  difficult  to  calculate  its  importance  in  our 
government's  decisions.  We  may  say  that  in 
general  it  was  the  result  of  that  large  category 
of  underhand  activities  which  were  entered 
upon  by  German  officials  either  for  the  purpose 
of  deliberately  deceiving  or  of  unduly  influenc- 
ing us  in  favor  of  the  German  cause  or  govern- 
ment. In  pursuing  this  policy  of  intrigue  and 
espionage  Germany  did  not  hesitate  to  resort 
to  means  which  were  dishonorable  and  illegal, 
and  in  many  cases  involved  such  serious  affronts 
to  our  sovereignty  that  in  the  past  we  had  dis- 

208 


GERMAN  INTRIGUE  209 

missed  the  representatives  of  foreign  Powers  for 
having  countenanced  or  engaged  in  them. 

In  1805,  for  instance,  the  Spanish  minister 
at  Washington,  the  Marquis  of  Casa  Yrujo 
tampered  with  the  American  press,  and  at- 
tempted to  bribe  a  Philadelphia  editor  to  pre- 
sent the  Spanish  side  of  a  controversy  with 
the  United  States.  Passports  were  issued  to 
him  and  he  was  dismissed  by  the  infant  republic. 
Nor  did  we  grow  less  jealous  of  our  sovereign 
rights  with  age.  During  a  political  campaign 
the  British  ambassador,  Lord  Sackville-West, 
in  reply  to  a  letter,  advised  Americans  of  Brit- 
ish birth  to  vote  for  Grover  Cleveland.  When, 
after  the  election,  the  incident  came  to  light, 
President  Cleveland  characterized  it  in  his 
annual  message  as,  "unpardonable  conduct," 
and  explained  that,  "the  offense  thus  com- 
mitted was  more  grave,  involving  disastrous 
possibilities  to  the  good  relations  of  the  United 
States  and  Great  Britain,  constituting  a  gross 
breach  of  diplomatic  privilege  and  an  invasion 
of  the  purely  domestic  affairs  and  essential 
sovereignty  of  the  government  to  which  the 
envoy  was  accredited." 


210  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

President  Cleveland,  therefore,  directed  that 
passports  be  issued  to  Lord  Sackville-West, 
and  Secretary  of  State  Bayard  held  that  cir- 
cumstances involving  interference  with  Amer- 
ican suffrage  left  no  other  course  open  to  the 
United  States. 

In  what  follows  it  will  be  plain  that  the  of- 
fenses committed  by  Lord  Sackville-West  and 
the  Marquis  of  Casa  Yrujo  were  the  merest 
peccadillos  compared  with  the  systematic  at- 
tempts of  Germany  to  influence  American  suf- 
frage and  to  disregard  the  sovereign  rights  of 
our  government. 

The  field  covered  by  this  underhand  activity 
was  so  large  and  the  means  employed  so  varied 
that  to  treat  it  in  all  its  phases  would  demand 
separate  volumes.  It  was  furthermore  in  many 
cases  so  cleverly  concealed  that  much  of  it  has 
not  yet  come  to  light,  and  more  than  a  year 
after  our  entrance  into  the  war  the  trials  and 
confessions  of  prisoners  and  suspected  persons 
disclosed  almost  daily  further  ramifications  of 
this  organized  secret  plotting.*  Thus,  for  in- 
stance, on  July  11,  1918,  at  the  investigation 
in  New  York  when  Senator  King  demanded 

*  Cf.  the  61es  of  the  New  York  Times  for  July,  1918. 


GERMAN  INTRIGUE  211 

that  the  government  conduct  an  investigation 
into  the  report  that  $30,000,000  had  been  used 
in  that  city  for  purchasing  newspapers  and 
spreading  propaganda,  Deputy  Attorney-Gen- 
eral Becker  made  the  statement  that  not  only 
this  sum  but  "untold  millions,"  had  been  put 
at  the  disposal  of  the  German  agents  as  a  "slush 
fund."  He  further  announced  that  at  least 
sixteen  New  York  banks  had  acted  as  deposi- 
taries for  German  funds,  and  that  an  investi- 
gation was  pending  to  discover  how  the  amounts 
drawn  from  these  accounts  by  Ambassador 
von  Bernstorff  and  his  aides  had  been  em- 
ployed. 

We  are  forced  to  restrict  ourselves,  therefore, 
to  noting  merely  some  of  the  characteristic 
aspects  of  this  wide-spread  plot,  and  in  doing 
so  we  shall  confine  ourselves  to  cases  that  have 
been  proven  by  documentary  evidence  now 
in  the  possession  of  the  government.  Many 
of  them  have  been  drawn  from  the  careful 
analysis  of  the  earlier  activities  of  German 
agents  prepared  by  Professors  Sperry  and 
West.*  In  no  cases  shall  we  deal  with  the  ac- 

1 "  German  Plots  and  Intrigue  in  the  United  States  during  the  Period 
of  our  Neutrality."  Committee  on  Public  Information,  Washington. 


212  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

tivity,  even  the  treasonable  acitivity,  of  isolated 
and  overzealous  German  sympathizers.  Every 
instance  which  follows  was  undertaken  at  the 
suggestion  or  with  the  knowledge  and  con- 
nivance, often  the  direct  collaboration  of  Ger- 
man Government  officials.  Where  funds  were 
necessary  they  were  provided  by  them. 

The  "commander-in-chief"  of  this  organiza- 
tion was  Count  von  Bernstorff,  the  German 
ambassador.  Until  his  dismissal  Doctor  Dum- 
ba,  the  Austro-Hungarian  ambassador  was  his 
coadjutor,  and  his  chief  lieutenants  were  Cap- 
tain'von  Papen,  military  attache,  and  Captain 
Boy-Ed,  naval  attache  of  the  German  embassy. 
They  were  assisted  by  Doctor  Albert,  the  com- 
merical  attache  and  Wolf  von  Igel,  secretary 
to  Von  Papen,  all  of  them  enjoying  diplomatic 
status  and  diplomatic  immunity.  Under  them 
served  most  of  the  German  and  Austrian  con- 
suls in  this  country,  a  large  number  of  German 
reservists,  hired  American  journalists,  and  an 
odd  collection  of  agitators  and  desperadoes 
drawn  often  from  the  lowest  classes. 

The  following  recital  of  what  was  done  and 
the  methods  employed  will  be  sufficient  to  show 


GERMAN  INTRIGUE  813 

the  lack  of  honor  and  conscience  of  the  Ger- 
man Government.  We  have  already  con- 
sidered the  character  of  German  political 
morality.  It  need  occasion  no  astonishment, 
therefore,  if  a  few  selected  messages  and  docu- 
ments prove  that  this  whole  underhand  system 
of  violence  and  deceit  was  merely  an  extension 
of  the  work  of  the  German  Foreign  Office  and 
the  General  Staff. 

On  November  2,  1914,  a  circular  order  was 
issued  from  the  German  General  Headquarters, 
"to  the  military  representative  on  the  Rus- 
sian and  French  fronts,  as  well  as  in  Italy  and 
Norway,"  and  it  is  not  improbable  that  one 
to  the  same  purport  was  sent  to  America.  It 
read: 

"In  all  branch  establishments  of  German 
banking  houses  in  Sweden,  Norway,  Switzer- 
land, China,  and  the  United  States,  special 
military  accounts  have  been  opened  for  special 
war  necessities.  Main  headquarters  authorizes 
you  to  use  these  credits  to  an  unlimited  extent 
for  the  purpose  of  destroying  factories,  work- 
shops, camps,  and  the  most  important  centres 
of  military  and  civil  supply  belonging  to  the 
enemy.  In  addition  to  the  incitement  of  labor 
troubles,  measures  must  be  taken  for  the  damag- 


214  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

ing  of  engines  and  machinery  plants,  the  de- 
struction of  vessels  carrying  war  material  to 
enemy  countries,  the  burning  of  stocks  of  raw 
materials  and  finished  goods,  and  the  depriving 
of  large  industrial  centres  of  electric  power, 
fuel,  and  food.  Special  agents,  who  will  be 
placed  at  your  disposal,  will  supply  you  with 
the  necessary  means  for  effecting  explosions 
and  fires,  as  well  as  with  a  list  of  people  in  the 
country  under  your  supervision  who  are  willing 
to  undertake  the  task  of  destruction. 

"(Signed)  DR.  E.  FISCHER." 

So  general  an  order,  if  sent  to  America,  was, 
however,  not  sufficient.  More  definite  instruc- 
tions on  the  various  phases  of  the  work  were 
from  time  to  time  forwarded  from  Berlin  to 
Von  Bernstorff.  A  few  sample  messages  which 
in  one  way  or  another  came  into  our  hands 
will  establish  the  fact.  The  following  are  copies 
of  two  telegrams  sent  to  the  German  ambas- 
sador: 


"Jan.  3  (1916).  (Secret.)  General  Staff  de- 
sires energetic  action  in  regard  to  proposed 
destruction  of  Canadian  Pacific  Railway  at 
several  points  with  a  view  to  complete  and 
protracted  interruption  of  traffic.  Captain 
Boehm,  who  is  known  on  your  side  and  shortly 


GERMAN  INTRIGUE  215 

returning,  has  been  given  instructions.  In- 
form the  Military  Attache  and  provide  the  nee- 
essary  funds.  „  (gigned)  ZlMMERMANN." 


"Jan.  26  (1916).  For  Military  Attache. 
You  can  obtain  particulars  as  to  persons  suit- 
able for  carrying  on  sabotage  in  the  United 
States  and  Canada  from  the  following  persons: 
(1)  Joseph  McGarrity,  Philadelphia,  Penn.  (2) 
John  P.  Keating,  Michigan  Avenue,  Chicago. 
(3)  Jeremiah  O'Leary,  16  Park  Row,  New 
York.  One  and  two  are  absolutely  reliable 
and  discreet.  No.  3  is  reliable,  but  not  always 
discreet.  These  persons  were  indicated  by 
Sir  Roger  Casement.  In  the  United  States 
sabotage  can  be  carried  out  on  every  kind  of 
factory  for  supplying  munitions  of  war.  Rail- 
way embankments  and  bridges  must  not  be 
touched.  Embassy  must  in  no  circumstances 
be  compromised.  Similar  precautions  must 
be  taken  in  regard  to  Irish  pro-German  propa- 

"  (Signed)  REPRESENTATIVE  OF 
GENERAL  STAFF." 


One  of  the  many  violations  of  our  neutrality 
by  Germany  was  her  attempt  to  start  mili- 
tary expeditions  against  her  enemies  from 
America.  These  plans  likewise  were  directed 
from  Berlin  through  Von  Bernstorff,  as  is  evi- 


216  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

dent  from  the  following  telegram  regarding 
the  status  of  the  organizer  of  the  projected 
revolt  in  India: 


"BERLIN,  4th  February,  1916. 
"To  the  German  Embassy,  Washington: 

"In  the  future  all  Indian  affairs  are  to  be 
handled  through  the  Committee  to  be  formed 
by  Dr.  Chakraberty.  Dhirenda  Sarkar  and 
Heramba  Lai  Gupta  who  has  meanwhile  been 
expelled  from  Japan,  will  cease  to  be  indepen- 
dent representatives  of  the  Indian  Independence 
Committee  existing  here. 

"  ZlMMERMANN. " 


There  can,  therefore,  be  no  doubt  that  this 
plot,  as  President  Wilson  subsequently  said 
of  the  German  plot  generally,  "had  its  heart 
in  Berlin."  Like  a  gigantic  octopus  it  sprawled 
over  our  entire  country  and  stretched  out  its 
tentacles  into  every  form  of  our  national  life. 
It  touched  our  Congress,  our  diplomacy,  our 
industry,  our  press.  Indeed  so  multiform  and 
all-pervasive  was  it  that  if  we  merely  sketch 
a  few  of  its  more  pronounced  phases,  it  must 
be  understood  that  they  all  worked  in  together 


GERMAN  INTRIGUE  817 

and  were  designed  to  nullify  our  neutrality,  our 
national  will,  indeed  our  sovereignty. 

These  attacks  upon  us  through  German  un- 
derhand diplomacy  may  be  said  to  have  been 
made  along  five  converging  lines.  In  the  first 
place,  they  sought  through  various  channels 
to  pervert  American  opinion  and  legislation  to 
German  ends  by  the  employment  of  immense 
sums  of  money.  In  the  second,  they  sought  to 
give  illegal  military  aid  to  Germany  directly. 
In  the  third  place,  they  attempted  to  use  the 
United  States  as  a  base  for  German  military 
operations.  In  the  fourth  place,  they  attempted 
to  interfere  with  American  industries,  especially 
the  manufacture  of  munitions  and  their  trans- 
portation on  land  and  water  in  order  to  prevent 
our  resources  from  being  of  value  to  the  Allies. 
In  the  fifth  place,  to  crown  their  structure  of 
intrigue  they  elaborated  a  system  of  under- 
hand diplomacy  through  which  they  hoped  to 
foment  trouble  between  America  and  the  Allies 
generally,  and  particularly  to  embroil  the 
United  States  in  a  war  with  Mexico  and  Japan. 

This  pyramid  of  plot  and  intrigue  had  as 
its  base  a  wide-spread  plan  to  poison  public 


218  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

opinion*  in  which  probably  not  less  than  $50,- 
000,000  was  spent  through  Ambassador  von 
Bernstorff,  Doctor  Dernburg,  the  former  Ger- 
man Colonial  Secretary,  and  their  aides.  In 
addition  to  their  German  assistants  there  were 
employed  a  number  of  American  journalists, 
correspondents,  and  lecturers  like  Doctor  Wil- 
liam Bayard  Hale,  Mr.  J.  F.  J.  Archibald,  to 
whom  at  least  one  check  for  $5,000  was  given 
for  "propaganda  work,"  and  Edwin  Emerson, 
who  received  $1,000  for  "travelling  expenses," 
and  many  others.  Not  content  with  this,  how- 
ever, they  bought  up  and  subsidized  newspapers 
throughout  the  land.  It  is  difficult  to  follow 
all  of  their  activities  in  connection  with  the 
foreign-language  press  already  existing  in  this 
country,  or  to  know  in  how  many  cases  they 
succeeded  in  bribing  editors  of  our  journals 
in  English.  Their  general  procedure  is  indi- 

*  That  the  German  Government  had  for  many  years  been  employ- 
ing debatable  methods  in  this  regard  is  painfully  evident  in  the  ac- 
count by  Witte,  attached  for  a  time,  when  he  was  supposed  to  be  only 
a  foreign  correspondent,  as  publicity  agent  to  the  German  Embassy 
(1902).  His  book  was  written  as  an  attack  upon  Holleben,  and  is  evi- 
dently controversial  and  the  work  of  a  mind  diseased.  This  portion  of 
it  must  be  taken  with  serious  reservations.  The  account  of  the  means 
and  instruments  employed  to  influence  American  opinion  is  incidental, 
and  this,  with  documents  cited,  is  sufficient  to  arouse  astonishment. 
(Aus  Einer  Deutschen  Botschaft,  Leipzig,  1907.) 


GERMAN  INTRIGUE  219 

cated,  however,  by  the  check  for  $5,000  which 
Count  von  Bernstorff  sent  to  Marcus  Brown, 
editor  of  Fair  Play*  the  monthly  subsidy  of 
$1,750  delivered  to  Mr.  George  Sylvester 
Viereck,  editor  of  The  Fatherland,  by  the  com- 
mercial attache  Albert,  and  the  similar  monthly 
subsidy  of  $1,500  paid  to  the  American  Inde- 
pendent, by  Consul-General  Bopp  of  San  Fran- 
cisco. Of  the  newspapers  bought  outright  by 
the  German  Government,  and  continued  os- 
tensibly as  American  organs  of  opinion,  the 
most  important  was  the  Evening  Mail  of  New 
York,  for  which  about  $1,500,000  of  a  seemingly 
inexhaustible  fund  was  spent. 

To  assist  in  this  attempt  at  perverting  Amer- 
ican opinion  there  were  founded  or  encouraged 
societies,  seemingly  American,  to  influence  sen- 
timent and  legislation.  The  most  important 
of  these  was  perhaps  the  German-American 
National  Alliance,  which  had  already  been  in 
existence  for  the  purpose  of  spreading  German 
influence  in  America,  and  which  they  sought 

*  It  has  recently  (August,  1918)  become  evident  that,  in  addition  to 
the  check  paid  to  the  editor,  the  German  ambassador  purchased  the 
stock  of  Fair  Play,  financially  a  losing  venture,  for  $15,000,  through  an 
American  intermediary.  (Cf.  New  York  Times  files  for  August,  1918.) 


220  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

to  make  a  power  in  politics.*  A  second,  founded 
for  the  more  immediate  purpose  of  influencing 
Congress  was  Labor's  National  Peace  Council, 
which  was  financed  by  Emperor  Wilhelm's 
friend  and  personal  agent,  Franz  von  Rintelen. 
A  third  was  the  American  Embargo  Conference, 
which  was  established  to  make  a  determined 
and  concerted  effort  to  prevent  the  export  of 
munitions  after  our  government  had  decided 
that  this  was  entirely  proper  within  the  limits 
of  our  neutrality.  Another  means  employed 
by  the  Embargo  Conference  was  that  of  dis- 
tributing to  voters  over  5,000,000  telegrams  to 

*  A  striking  change  in  Germany's  attitude  toward  Germans  who  had 
emigrated  to  America  is  noticeable  after  about  1900,  at  the  time  when 
the  Pan-German  movement  began  to  gain  momentum.  Earlier  they 
had  frequently  been  treated  as  renegades.  After  this  period,  partic- 
ularly after  Prince  Henry's  visit  in  1902,  every  attempt  was  made  to 
strengthen  their  loyalty  to  the  fatherland.  The  promotion  of  societies 
among  them  was  encouraged,  and  flags  were  often  presented  to  the  Amer- 
ican societies  of  German  veterans,  Landwehr-Vereine,  by  the  German 
Emperor  through  his  ambassador.  (Cf.  Aus  Einer  Deutschen,  Botschaft, 
by  Emil  Witte,  Leipzig,  1907,  chap.  VII).  The  teaching  of  German  in 
American  schools  was  pushed  and  German-language  papers  encouraged 
and.  it  would  seem,  subsidized.  The  leaders  of  the  German-American 
movement  frequently  received  decorations  from  Berlin.  In  his  "Life 
of  John  Hay,"  vol.  II,  p.  290,  Thayer  says,  and  we  think  very  truly: 
"Prince  Henry's  visit,  however,  was  really  intended  to  solidify  the 
German-American  movement  in  behalf  of  the  Fatherland."  The  po- 
litical purpose  of  the  movement  is  plainer  now  than  it  was  then,  though 
Doctor  von  Holleben,  German  ambassador  at  that  time,  was  bold  enough 
to  say  to  a  reporter:  "Any  war  between  Germany  and  the  United  States 
•would  be  in  the  character  of  a  civil  war."  (Cf.  Witte,  Aut  Einer  Dentschen 
Botochaft.  chap.  II.) 


GERMAN  INTRIGUE 

be  sent  to  Congress  demanding  an  embargo 
on  munitions.  On  a  single  day  250,000  identical 
messages  poured  into  Washington,  and  in  Chi- 
cago alone  the  Conference  paid  the  telegraph 
companies  about  $20,000. 

That  the  results  were  satisfactory  to  the 
German  Government  is  evident  from  Count 
von  Bernstorff's  telegram  of  September  16, 
1916,  to  the  German  Foreign  Office:  "The 
Embargo  Conference,  in  regard  to  whose  earlier 
fruitful  co-operation  Dr.  Hale  can  give  informa- 
tion, is  just  about  to  enter  upon  a  vigorous  cam- 
paign to  secure  a  majority  in  both  houses  of 
Congress  favorable  to  Germany  and  request 
further  support.  There  is  no  possibility  of 
our  being  compromised.  Request  telegraphic 
reply."  This  organization  functioned  to  the 
very  last  months  of  the  period  of  our  neutral- 
ity and  later  Count  von  Bernstorff  was  again 
to  telegraph  Berlin  for  further  sums  to  be  spent 
on  this  and  similar  organizations  which  aimed 
to  force  pro-German  policies  through  Congress. 

"I  request  authority  to  pay  out  up  to  $50,000 
(fifty  thousand  dollars)  in  order,  as  on  former 
occasions  to  influence  Congress  through  the 


222  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

organization  you  know  of,  which  can  perhaps 
prevent  war. 

"I  am  beginning  in  the  meantime  to  act  ac- 
cordingly. 

"In  the  above  circumstances  a  public  official 
German  declaration  in  favor  of  Ireland  is  highly 
desirable,  in  order  to  gain  the  support  of  the 
Irish  influence  here." 

There  is  at  present  no  doubt  that  actual  brib- 
ery of  Congress  was  intended  by  Franz  von  Rin- 
telen,  and  it  is  very  possible  that  the  same  was 
true  in  the  case  of  Count  von  Bernstorff  and  his 
society.  Both  Congressman  Buchanan,  who  was 
the  president  of  Labor's  National  Peace  Council, 
and  Ex-Congressman  Fowler  received  money  for 
their  assistance  in  attempting  to  bribe  Con- 
gress.* Money  was  also  advanced  according  to 
the  testimony  of  Meloy  to  Lamar,  "the  Wolf  of 
Wall  Street,"  f  to  be  used  in  procuring  the  pas- 
sage of  resolutions  by  Congress  which  should 
embarrass  the  government  in  the  conduct  of  its 
relations  with  Germany.  In  addition  to  their 
purposes  in  influencing  public  opinion  and  legis- 
lation these  and  like  societies  were  also  used  for 
other  ends  which  do  not  concern  us  here. 

*  German  Plots  and  Intrigues.     Issued  by  Committee  on  Public  In- 
formation, p.  16. 


GERMAN  INTRIGUE  223 

The  second  phase  of  German  intrigue  we 
have  described  is  the  attempt  to  give  illegal 
military  assistance  to  Germany,  and  the  effort 
to  do  this  assumed  likewise  various  forms.  We 
can  deal  with  only  two  that  are  characteristic. 
Immediately  after  the  beginning  of  the  war  the 
German  Government,  through  the  Hamburg- 
American  Line  and  its  officials  in  New  York, 
endeavored  to  send  coal  and  other  supplies 
to  German  war-ships  which  were  raiding  com- 
merce along  both  our  coasts.  Such  action  was 
a  violation  of  American  neutrality,  and  in  order 
to  evade  the  law  the  German  agents  detailed 
to  this  work  took  false  oaths  before  Federal 
authorities  concerning  the  nature,  destination, 
and  cargoes  of  their  vessels.  In  addition  to 
the  aid  and  comfort  given  to  Germany  in  this 
matter  the  plan  was  also  aimed  at  causing  fric- 
tion between  the  United  States  and  the  coun- 
tries with  which  it  was  at  peace.  Some  of 
those  implicated  were  convicted  in  December, 
1915,  of  conspiracy  to  defraud  the  United  States. 
The  evidence  at  the  trial  proved  that  fraud 
and  perjury  were  here,  as  in  every  phase  of  this 
German  activity,  committed  under  the  direc- 


224  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

tion  of  officials  protected  by  the  diplomatic 
privileges  held  sacred  by  other  nations.  Though 
the  results  were  meagre,  the  copy  of  Captain 
Boy-Ed's  account  at  a  New  York  bank  indi- 
cates that  he  paid  the  Hamburg-American 
Line  more  than  $3,000,000  for  furthering  Ger- 
many's naval  operations  from  the  United 
States. 

One  of  the  phases  of  these  efforts  to  give 
Germany  direct  military  aid  is  more  interest- 
ing than  some,  since  it  has  its  amusing  side. 
In  their  eager  desire  to  send  troops  and  muni- 
tions to  the  Central  Empires  the  German  Em- 
bassy and  its  group  of  plotters  overreached 
themselves  very  early  in  the  game,  and  all  the 
stages  of  their  procedure  were  from  the  be- 
ginning known  to  our  Department  of  Justice. 
In  order  to  send  German  reservists  abroad  it 
was  necessary  that  they  be  provided  with  Amer- 
ican passports,  and  with  true  German  efficiency, 
therefore,  an  office  was  established  in  New  York 
through  the  German  Embassy  and  directed 
by  Captain  von  Papen,  military  attache,  where 
American  passports  were  forged  by  wholesale. 
German  consuls  in  distant  cities  like  Chicago 


GERMAN  INTRIGUE  225 

and  St.  Paul  were  informed  concerning  this 
office  and  sent  the  reservists  from  their  local- 
ities to  the  given  address  to  be  supplied.  The 
operations  were  developed  on  so  large  a  scale 
that  the  busy  conspirators  did  not  therefore 
notice  the  "infiltration"  of  a  member  of  the 
United  States  Secret  Service.  They  evidently 
believed  that  the  United  States,  which  sub- 
mitted to  much  more  serious  offenses,  would 
not  object,  and,  unfortunately,  this  belief  in 
our  indulgence  was  not  misplaced. 

We  have  seen  in  the  chapter  on  "Strict  Neu- 
trality" that  as  early  as  January  20,  1915,  the 
Secretary  of  State  had  called  attention  to  the 
fact  that  persons  of  German  nationality,  under 
pretense  of  being  American  citizens,  had  ob- 
tained American  passports  for  the  purpose 
of  returning  to  Germany  without  molestation 
by  her  enemies,  and  that  "there  are  indications 
that  a  systematic  plan"  had  been  devised  to 
obtain  American  passports  through  fraud  for 
the  purpose  of  securing  passage  for  German 
officers  and  reservists  desiring  to  return  to  Ger- 
many, "and  that  such  fraudulent  use  of  pass- 
ports by  Germans  can  have  no  other  effect  than 


WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

to  cast  suspicion  upon  American  passports  in 
general."  We  have  seen  also  that  instead  of 
taking  any  action  against  the  German  Embassy, 
which  was  discrediting  American  passports,  our 
government  merely  made  new  regulations,  and 
hoped  that  "this  would  prevent  any  further 
misuse  of  American  passports."* 

The  "indications"  that  a  systematic  plan  was 
on  foot  were  plain  indeed.  Hans  von  Wedell, 
who  had  managed  it  under  Captain  von  Papen, 
took  alarm  and  fled  in  November,  1914,  with 
money  supplied  by  his  employer.  There  could 
have  been  no  doubt  as  to  the  complicity  of  the 
German  Embassy  in  the  business,  for  the  follow- 
ing letter  from  Von  Wedell  was  in  the  posses- 
sion of  our  secret  service: 

"  His  Excellency,  the  Imperial  German  Ambas- 
sador, Count  von  Bernstorff, 

Washington,  D.  C.: 

:   .  .  .     My   work   was   done.      At   my   de- 
parture, I  left  the  service  well  organized,  and 

*  What  discredit  had  been  thrown  upon  all  American  passports  by 
this  counterfeiting  is  readily  apparent.    We  give  but  a  single  instance. 
Mr.  Arthur  Gleason,  a  former  correspondent  and  worker  for  the  Red 
Cross,  writes  as  follows: 

*  IB  October,  1914,  two  miles  outside  Ostend,  I  was  arrested  as  a  spy 
by  the  Belgians,  and  marched  through  the  streets  in  front  of  a  gun  in 
the  hands  of  a  very  young  and  very  nervous  soldier.    The  fitat- Major 


GERMAN  INTRIGUE  227 

worked  out  in  minute  detail,  in  the  hands  of 
my  successor,  Mr.  Karl  Ruroede,  picked  out 
by  myself.  .  .  .  Also,  Ruroede  will  testify  to 
you  that  without  my  preliminary  labors  it 
would  be  impossible  for  him,  as  well  as  for  Mr. 
von  Papen,  to  forward  officers  in  any  way  what- 
ever. ,  .  .  Ten  days  before  my  departure  I 
learned  from  a  telegram  sent  me  by  Mr.  von 
Papen  .  .  .  that  Dr.  Starck  had  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  the  British.  That  gentleman's  forged 
papers  were  liable  to  come  back  and  could 
...  be  traced  to  me.  Mr.  von  Papen  had  re- 
peatedly and  urgently  ordered  me  to  hide  my- 
self. Mr.  Igel  told  me  that  I  was  taking  the 
matter  altogether  too  lightly,  and  that  I  ought, 
for  God's  sake,  to  disappear.  .  .  . 

"With  expressions  of  the  most  exquisite 
consideration,  I  am  your  Excellency's, 

"Very  respectfully, 
"  (Signed)  HANS  ADAM  VON  WEDELL." 

Hans  von  Wedell  had  in  the  words  of  the 
song  gone  and  ta'en  his  wages  (we  know  that 
in  one  month  Von  Papen  had  advanced  to  him 
nearly  $3,000),  but  the  office  under  his  successor 
Ruroede  functioned  and  prospered,  for  he  was 

told  me  that  German  officers  had  been  using  American  passports  to 
enter  the  allied  lines,  and  learn  the  number  and  disposition  of  troops. 
They  had  to  arrest  Americans  on  sight,  and  find  out  if  they  were  mas- 
queraders.  A  little  later  one  of  our  American  ambassadors  verified  this 
by  saying  to  me  that  American  passports  had  been  flagrantly  abused." 
("Golden  Lads,"  by  Arthur  Gleason,  p.  25.) 


2S8  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

now  assisted  by  one  of  our  own  secret-service 
men  who  had  entered  his  employ,  and  was 
watched  by  others.  The  connection  of  the  of- 
fice with  Von  Papen  and  the  German  Embassy, 
and  all  the  details  of  its  operation  and  the 
sources  of  its  funds  were  known  to  these  detec- 
tives.. On  January  2,  the  diligent  Ruroede 
provided  American  passports  for  four  German 
reservists.  He  had  obtained  them  from  the 
United  States  secret-service  man.  He  put  his 
four  German  reservists  on  board  the  Norwegian 
steamer  Bergensfjord,  but  as  the  big  liner  dropped 
down  the  bay  she  was  followed  by  a  United 
States  revenue  cutter.  At  quarantine  federal 
officers  boarded  the  steamer,  arrested  the  re- 
servists and  brought  them  back  to  New  York. 
The  chain  of  evidence  was  complete.  The  com- 
plicity of  the  German  Embassy  was  evident, 
but  at  the  time  action  was  only  taken  against 
Ruroede,  and  the  German  Embassy  and  the 
restless  Von  Papen  were  allowed  to  employ 
their  talents  elsewhere,  and  quite  naturally 
the  captain  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
Yankees  were  "idiotic."  In  this  fashion  not 
only  were  reservists  sent  abroad,  but  American 


GERMAN  INTRIGUE  229 

passports  were  procured  which  were  used  by 
German  spies  in  Europe  and  in  England. 

We  have  seen  that  the  third  line  of  policy 
pursued  by  the  German  representatives  in  this 
country  was  directed  toward  using  the  United 
States  as  a  basis  for  hostile  operations.  These 
were  directed  particularly  against  India,  Ire- 
land, and  Canada.  In  this  regard  they  were 
very  active,  though  their  success  can  hardly  be 
called  brilliant.  The  attempt  to  start  a  revolt 
in  India  was  begun  even  before  the  declaration 
of  war  in  1914,  and  the  German  agents  work- 
ing with  Hindoo  revolutionists  started  opera- 
tions in  San  Francisco,  where  the  plotting  was 
carried  out  under  the  direction  of  the  German 
Consul  Franz  Bopp.  With  his  assistants  (they 
included  Captain  von  Papen  and  Wolf  von 
Igel)  he  was  finally  convicted  in  the  federal 
court  of  San  Francisco,  in  March,  1918,  for 
"felonious  conspiracy  to  set  on  foot  a  military 
enterprise  to  be  carried  on  within  the  territory 
of  the  United  States  against  India."  The  rami- 
fications of  this  plot  were  almost  innumerable, 
and  the  amount  of  fraud  and  deceit  required 
in  prosecuting  it  through  its  various  stages 


230  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

would  have  given  pause  to  any  other  govern- 
ment. The  telegram  already  quoted  from  For- 
eign Secretary  Zimmermann  to  Count  von 
Bernstorff  shows  that  it  was  initiated  at  Berlin, 
and  that  its  strands  passed  through  our  em- 
bassy. Agents  were  employed  in  Switzerland 
and  in  all  sections  of  our  country,  though  par- 
ticularly in  Chicago  and  San  Francisco.  Large 
sums  were  spent  in  propaganda  among  the 
Hindoos  in  the  United  States,  and  bribery 
was  very  frequently  resorted  to.  Arms  and 
ammunition  were  purchased  and  vessels  like 
the  Annie  Larsen  and  the  Maverick  were  char- 
tered to  carry  them,  and,  of  course,  in  order 
to  have  them  cleared,  false  manifests  were  is- 
sued. When  through  the  failure  of  some  of 
the  complicated  arrangements  part  of  these 
stores  of  arms  and  ammunition  was  landed  at 
Hoquiam,  Washington,  Ambassador  Bernstorff 
had  the  effrontery  to  request  that  they  be 
turned  over  to  the  German  consul  at  Seattle. 
While  plans  for  supplying  the  projected  Hindoo 
insurrectionists  with  arms  and  men  were  being 
carried  out  from  San  Francisco,  a  group  of  con- 
spirators in  Chicago  under  German  leadership 


GERMAN  INTRIGUE  231 

and  financed  by  German  money  from  the  Ger- 
man Embassy  was  planning  a  simultaneous  in- 
vasion of  India  from  Siam.  Various  substations 
in  the  plot  were  established  at  Hawaii,  Manila, 
and  Bangkok.  The  extent  of  the  plot  may 
be  gathered  from  the  fact  that  in  various  parts 
of  the  country,  and  especially  hi  San  Fran- 
cisco, well  over  a  hundred  German  agents  with 
their  Hindoo  fellow  conspirators  were  indicted, 
and  most  of  them  convicted. 

If  the  Indian  plot  for  all  the  sums*  and  in- 
genuity expended  upon  it  proved  a  fiasco,  much 
the  same  was  true  of  the  attempt  to  establish 
co-operation  in  America  with  the  Irish  Revo- 
lutionists. The  failure  was  not  due,  however, 
to  any  unwillingness  on  the  part  of  the  im- 
perial German  ambassador  to  give  unstinted 
aid  in  these  underhand  and  felonious  projects^ 
which  included  the  shipment  of  arms  and  sup- 
plies from  America,  and  the  telegrams  from  the 
"  Military  Information  Bureau  "  in  Ne\v  York 
to  Von  Bernstorff  sent  in  April,  1916,  before 
Sir  Roger  Casement's  blundering  expedition, 

*  Chakraberty  on  the  witness-stand  admitted  having  received  from 
Wolf  von  Igel  alone  $60,000. 


232  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

leave  no  question  as  to  the  embassy's  complic- 
ity in  the  matter. 

The  aid  given  by  Canada  to  Great  Britain 
in  the  struggle  against  Germany  early  became 
a  thorn  in  the  side  of  Germany's  representa- 
tives in  this  country,  and  they  decided  to  take 
measures  against  the  Dominion,  using  the  United 
States  as  their  base  of  operations.  Their  plans 
contemplated  not  only  the  crippling  of  Cana- 
dian commerce  and  industry  by  blowing  up 
bridges,  tunnels,  canals,  and  manufacturing 
establishments,  but  even  the  carrying  of  the 
war  into  Canada. 

In  February,  1915,  Werner  Horn,  a  German 
lieutenant,  was  ordered  by  Captain  von  Papen 
to  blow  up  the  Grand  Trunk  Railway  bridge 
where  it  crosses  from  Vanceboro,  Maine,  into 
Canada.  Von  Papen  supplied  him  with  $700, 
and  Horn  was  arrested  after  he  had  caused 
the  explosion,  was  found  guilty,  and  sentenced. 
Horn's  adventure,  however,  was  merely  to 
have  been  a  minor  episode  in  a  plot  so  extensive 
that  it  included  the  blowing  up  of  the  tunnels 
and  bridges  on  the  Canadian  Pacific  Railroad, 
the  locks  at  Sault  Ste.  Marie,  the  tunnels  from 
Port  Huron  to  Sarnia  under  the  St.  Clair  River, 


GERMAN  INTRIGUE  233 

the  Welland  Canal  and  important  railroad 
junctions.  Conspirators  were  sent  out  to  do 
this  by  German  consuls  in  various  parts  of  the 
country,  notably  San  Francisco  and  Chicago, 
and  directly  from  New  York  by  Von  Papen. 
Enumeration  of  the  various  attempts  made 
and  of  the  tools  hired  by  German  agents  or 
German-American  sympathizers  at  the  instiga- 
tion of  German  officials  would  be  monotonous. 
A  single  instance  must  suffice. 

Captain  von  Papen  picked  as  one  of  his  col- 
laborators a  German  citizen,  Von  der  Goltz. 
It  was  decided  that  he  should  blow  up  the  Wel- 
land Canal,  the  grain-elevators  at  Fort  William, 
and  if  possible  the  Sault  Ste.  Marie  locks  and 
railroad  bridges.  At  the  German  Club  in  New 
York  Von  Papen  supplied  him  with  the  neces- 
sary fuses,  wires,  and  generators,  and  made^ 
arrangements  through  which  he  should  be  sup- 
plied with  dynamite  by  Captain  Hans  Tauscher. 
He  was  further  provided  with  funds  by  Von 
Papen,  some  of  them  in  the  form  of  a  check 
on  the  Riggs  National  Bank  at  Washington 
(where  the  German  Embassy  had  its  deposits), 
and  started  for  Buffalo  with  suitcases  contain- 
ing 100  pounds  of  dynamite.  In  Buffalo  his 


234  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

difficulties  began  when  an  American  confeder- 
ate of  Von  Papen's  failed  to  deliver  the  lat- 
ter's  telegraphic  instructions.  After  Von  der 
Goltz  had  compromised  himself,  Von  Papen,  un- 
der an  assumed  name  (Steffens),  telegraphed  his 
Buffalo  agent:  "Please  instruct  Taylor  (Von 
der  Goltz)  cannot  do  anything  more  for  him." 
He  did,  however,  promise  to  arrange  with  Am- 
bassador Bernstorff  for  Von  der  Goltz's  de- 
parture, and  the  arrangement  was  carried  out, 
as  the  following  receipt  will  show: 


YORK,  October  1,  1914. 
"I  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  $150.00  with 
the  obligation  of  using  the  amount  for  a  voyage 
to  Germany. 

"(Berlin  General  Staff.) 

"H.  VON  DER  GOLTZ." 

The  stubs  of  Von  Papen's  check-book  show 
that  Von  der  Goltz  had  received  from  the  German 
Embassy  or  its  military  attache  about  $1,800. 

Unlike  Von  der  Goltz,  many  of  the  conspira- 
tors, like  those  sent  out  from  the  San  Francisco 
or  Chicago  consulates  or  by  Albert  Kaltschmidt 
in  Detroit,  succeeded  in  entering  Canada  and 
in  some  cases  in  causing  more  or  less  important 
explosions.  It  can  be  readily  imagined  that 


GERMAN  INTRIGUE  235 

the  moral  character  of  some  of  the  agents  em- 
ployed was  not  very  high,  and  yet  some  of  them 
when  it  came  to  the  sticking-point  shrank  from 
the  wanton  destruction  of  life  involved  in  the 
tasks  set  them,  as,  for  instance,  when  Kalt- 
schmidt  hired  Respa  to  blow  up  the  Windsor 
Armory,  which  was  filled  with  soldiers.  Respa 
planted  thirty  sticks  of  dynamite  as  he  had 
been  instructed  to  do,  but  before  leaving,  realiz- 
ing that  if  his  bomb  exploded  it  would  blow  up 
the  armory  and  "kill  every  man  in  it,"  he  de- 
liberately fixed  the  bomb  so  that  it  would  not 
explode.  Some  of  Kaltschmidt's  other  attempts, 
were,  however,  more  successful.  Kaltschmidt 
was  from  the  first  liberally  supplied  with  Ger- 
man funds  by  Von  Papen's  secretary,  Wolf 
von  Igel;  but  the  complicity  of  the  German 
Embassy  in  the  plot  is  proved  beyond  question 
by  the  following  note  from  Albert,  the  com- 
mercial attache  of  the  German  Embassy: 

"H.  F.  ALBERT,  45  BROADWAY, 

"NEW  YORK,  Oct.  4,  1915. 
"Chase  National  Bank,  57  Broadway,  New  York 

City: 

" Gentlemen: — Please  deposit  with  Knauth, 
Nachod  and  Kuhne,  New  York,  $25,000  (twenty- 
five  thousand  dollars)  for  account  of  Mr.  Kalt- 


236  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

schmidt,  Detroit,  and  charge  a  like  amount  to 
my  joint  account  with  J.  Bernstorff. 
;' Yours  very  truly, 

"HEINRICH  F.  ALBERT." 

At  the  same  time  that  these  attempts  to 
cripple  Canada  were  being  made,  Von  Papen 
and  Boy-Ed  had  devised  a  plan  which  they 
discussed  with  German  reservists,  and  accord- 
ing to  which  they  were  to  seize  on  the  west 
coast  of  Canada,  a  spot  where  they  could  land 
German  troops  with  the  aid  of  German  raiders. 
The  reservists  in  the  United  States  were  to  be 
sent  to  other  neutral  territory  (probably  Mex- 
ico), where  they  would  be  embarked.  It  was 
believed  that  this  would,  in  the  testimony  of 
one  of  the  confederates, 

"  (1)  Prevent  the  Canadian  contingents  then 
under  training  from  sailing  for  Europe. 

"(2)  Prevent  Canada  from  supplying  Eng- 
land with  necessaries  on  account  of  their  being 
needed  in  the  country  itself. 

"(3)  Bring  matters  in  the  United  States  to 
a  decision,  the  Government  being  forced  either 
to  supply  both  parties  with  arms  and  ammuni- 
tion, or  to  prohibit  the  export  of  these  articles 
altogether." 


GERMAN  INTRIGUE  237 

This  ambitious  project,  which  had  been  elab- 
orated in  the  early  months  of  the  war,  finally  met 
with  objection  on  the  part  of  Von  Bernstorff, 
who  either  feared  that  Canada  had  become  too 
strong  for  them,  or  that  the  plan  would  involve 
them  too  openly  with  our  government. 

But  it  was  not  only  against  Great  Britain 
and  her  allies  that  the  German  representatives 
in  this  country  plotted  and  acted.  Having 
failed  in  their  attempts  to  send  aid  directly 
to  Germany  or  to  cause  any  serious  trouble 
in  the  British  colonies,  they  next  turned  their 
attention  to  rendering  the  United  States  im- 
potent by  interfering  with  our  manufactures 
and  destroying  our  commerce.  That  these 
plans  were  made  with  the  full  knowledge,  and 
possibly  at  the  suggestion  of  Germany's  am- 
bassador, is  plain  from  the  following  communi- 
cation: 

"IMPERIAL  GERMAN  EMBASSY, 

"WASHINGTON,  Nov.  4,  1916. 
"I  hereby  permit  myself  to  recommend  to 
you  most  warmly  Dr.  Karl  O.  Bertling,  Direk- 
tor  of  the  Amerika-Institute  in  Berlin.  Dr. 
Bertling  will  take  the  liberty  to  lay  before  you 
some  matters  pertaining  to  the  activity  of  the 


238  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

Central  Bureau  for  German  and  Austro-Hun- 
garian  workmen.  This  work  as  well  as  the 
collection  of  funds  for  its  further  extension  are 
worthy  of  all  sympathy. 

"Dr.  Bertling  is  authorized  to  receive  con- 
tributions in  any  amount.     Checks  are  to  be 
made  payable  to  Hans  Liebau,  Treasurer. 
"Yours  with  special  respect, 

"  (Signed)  J.  VON  BERNSTORFF." 

The  purpose  of  this  bureau  is  suggested  in  the 
following  extract  from  Liebau's  monthly  report 
made  to  the  German  Embassy  for  September, 
1916: 

"Many  disturbances  and  suspensions  which 
war  material  factories  have  had  to  suffer,  and 
which  it  was  not  always  possible  to  remove 
quickly,  but  which  on  the  contrary  often  lead 
to  long  strikes,  may  be  attributed  to  the  ener- 
getic propaganda  of  the  employment  bureau." 

The  attempt  to  paralyze  industry  by  the 
creation  of  strikes  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
reason  for  Ambassador  Dumba's  dismissal.  At 
the  time  when  Dumba  received  his  passports 
and  suspicion  was  directed  toward  Von  Bern- 
storff,  the  latter  took  the  position  that  "this 
slander  required  no  answer,"  and  according 


GERMAN  INTRIGUE  239 

to  Dumba  "had  the  happy  inspiration  to  re- 
fuse any  explanation."  But  so  determined 
was  the  German  Government  to  tie  up  indus- 
try in  this  country  that,  not  content  with  the  dil- 
igence of  Von  Bernstorff,  it  sent  to  America  to 
direct  this  enterprise  the  Kaiser's  special  friend 
and  representative,  Franz  von  Rintelen,  of 
whose  activities  we  have  already  learned.  It 
was  he  who  had  started  Labor's  National  Peace 
Council,  one  of  whose  main  purposes  was  to 
provoke  strikes  in  munition-factories,  and  he 
employed  numerous  agitators  to  do  this  with 
promises  of  from  $5,000  to  $10,000  reward  in 
cases  where  they  promoted  "successful  strikes." 
How  eager  Von  Rintelen  was  to  carry  out 
his  designs  is  evident  from  his  proposal  to  pay 
the  members  of  the  International  Longshore- 
men's Union  $10  a  week  while  idle,  and  at 
the  time  of  making  the  proposal  he  sent  word 
that  he  had  the  $1,035,000  necessary  for  the 
purpose.  While  Labor's  National  Peace  Coun- 
cil was  being  organized,  Von  Rintelen's  ac- 
counts with  the  Transatlantic  Trust  Company 
show  that  he  paid  out  from  April  to  August 
$468,000.  It  is  pleasant  to  remember  that 


240  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

here  Greek  met  Greek,  and  that  for  all  his  dili- 
gence and  munificence  Von  Rintelen  received 
little  in  return. 

More  successful  were  the  attempts  made 
to  start  fires  and  explosions  in  American  muni- 
tion-factories. It  would  be  impossible  to  give 
a  list  of  all  these,  but  some  indication  of  their 
frequency  and  seriousness  may  be  gleaned 
from  the  fact  that  at  the  time  when  the  Ger- 
man agents  were  most  active  in  this  regard, 
within  twenty-four  hours  between  November 
10  and  11,  1915,  incendiary  fires  and  explosions 
took  place  in  the  Bethlehem  Steel  Works,  the 
Midvale  Steel  and  Ordnance  Company,  the 
Baldwin  Locomotive  Works  at  Eddystone,  and 
the  John  A.  Roebling's  Sons  Company  at 
Trenton,  N.  J.  But  besides  the  attempt  to 
destroy  our  munition-factories,  determined  and 
systematic  attempts,  in  many  cases  unfor- 
tunately successful,  were  made  to  blow  up  ships 
carrying  munitions  from  this  country  to  Eu- 
rope. To  this  end  several  bomb -manufactur- 
ing plants  were  established  under  the  direc- 
tion of  Captain  von  Papen  and  Wolf  von  Igel. 
When  some  of  the  conspirators  were  brought 


GERMAN  INTRIGUE  241 

to  trial,  one  of  the  witnesses  proved  to  be  a 
detective  who  belonged  to  the  New  York 
"Bomb  Squad."  Under  the  pretense  that 
he  was  a  German  secret-service  man  employed 
by  Wolf  von  Igel  (Von  Papen's  secretary), 
he  had  succeeded  in  making  an  appointment 
with  Captain  von  Kleist,  superintendent  of 
one  of  these  factories,  and  he  gave  the  follow- 
ing account  of  the  interview: 

"We  sat  down  and  we  spoke  for  about  three 
hours.  I  asked  him  the  different  things  that 
he  did,  and  said  if  he  wanted  an  interview  with 
Mr.  von  Igel,  my  boss,  he  would  have  to  tell 
everything.  So  he  told  me  that  Von  Papen 
gave  Dr.  Scheele,  the  partner  of  Von  Kleist 
in  this  factory,  a  check  for  $10,000  to  start 
this  bomb  factory.  .  .  .  He  told  me  that  he, 
Mr.  von  Kleist,  and  Dr.  Scheele  and  a  man 
by  the  name  of  Becker  on  the  Friedrich  der 
Grosse  were  making  the  bombs,  and  that  Cap- 
tain Wolpert,  Captain  Bode,  and  Captain  Stein- 
berg, had  charge  of  putting  these  bombs  on 
the  ships;  they  put  these  bombs  in  cases  and 
shipped  them  as  merchandise  on  these  steamers, 
and  they  would  go  away  on  the  trip  and  the 
bombs  would  go  off  after  the  ship  was  out  four 
or  five  days,  causing  a  fire  and  causing  the  cargo 
to  go  up  in  flames.  .  .  .  He  also  told  me  that 
they  have  made  quite  a  number  of  these  bombs; 


242  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

that  thirty  of  them  were  given  to  a  party  by 
the  name  of  O'Leary,  and  that  he  took  them 
down  to  New  Orleans  where  he  had  charge  of 
putting  them  on  ships  down  there,  this  fellow 
O'Leary." 

Between  three  and  four  hundred  bombs  were 
manufactured  by  this  group  and  fires  are  known 
to  have  been  started  by  them  on  thirty-three 
ships  sailing  from  New  York  alone.  There 
were,  however,  other  factories  in  the  East,  and 
in  addition  the  German  consul  in  San  Francisco 
showed  in  this  regard  the  same  diligence  in 
deviltry  that  he  had  in  others. 

It  is  plain  that  the  German  Embassy  and 
the  German  representatives  in  this  country 
stopped  at  nothing  in  their  attempt  to  advance 
their  cause.  We  need  not,  therefore,  be  sur- 
prised in  considering  the  last  phase  of  their 
intrigue  and  plotting  to  find  that,  while  they 
pretended  to  be  at  peace  with  us  and  protested 
friendship,  they  should  all  the  time  have  been 
busily  engaged  in  underhand  plans  to  embroil 
the  United  States  writh  its  neighbors.  In  this 
way  they  thought  they  could  create  a  situation 
which  would  demand  our  undivided  attention, 
and  make  it  impossible  for  us  either  to  export 


GERMAN  INTRIGUE  243 

munitions  or  to  take  any  measures  against 
Germany  for  her  violation  of  our  rights.  The 
scheme  to  which  the  German  officials  contin- 
ually reverted  was  that  of  embroiling  us  with 
Mexico  and  Japan.  In  addition  to  his  work 
in  fomenting  strikes  Von  Rintelen  had  evidently 
been  given  a  special  commission  to  start  war 
if  possible  between  ourselves  and  our  southern 
neighbors.  At  his  trial  one  of  the  witnesses 
testified  that  Rintelen  had  explained  his  pur- 
poses as  follows: 

"That  he  came  to  the  United  States  in  order 
to  embroil  it  with  Mexico  and  Japan  if  neces- 
sary; that  he  was  doing  all  he  could  and  was 
going  to  do  all  he  could  to  embroil  this  country 
with  Mexico;  that  he  believed  that  if  the  United 
States  had  a  war  with  Mexico  it  would  stop 
the  shipment  of  ammunition  to  Europe;  that 
he  believed  it  would  be  only  a  matter  of  time 
until  we  were  involved  with  Japan. 

"Rintelen  also  said  that  General  Huerta 
was  going  to  return  to  Mexico  and  start  a  revo- 
lution there  which  would  cause  the  United 
States  to  intervene  and  so  make  it  impossible 
to  ship  munitions  to  Europe.  Intervention, 
he  said,  was  one  of  his  trump  cards." 

Everything  that  could  be  done  in  furtherance 
of  this  plan  in  the  way  of  encouraging  and  at- 


244  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

tempting  to  supply  munitions  to  the  Mexican 
rebels  was  done,  and  within  Mexico  itself  Von 
Rintelen  was  in  connection  with  other  German 
agents  who  were  conducting  a  powerful  anti- 
American  propaganda.  This  whole  phase  of 
his  activity  was  to  culminate  in  the  notorious 
Zimmermann  note,  which  was,  however,  not 
to  become  known  in  this  country,  at  least  not 
to  the  public  till  after  our  entry  into  the  war. 
It  will  be  cited  later  and  proves  a  fitting  climax 
to  the  three  years  of  intrigue  carried  on  by 
diplomats  who  spent  what  time  they  could 
spare  from  their  underhand  plotting,  in  protest- 
ing their  friendship. 

The  brief  summary  given  above  is  sufficient 
to  show  that  Von  Bernstorff's  activities  were 
such  that  he  deserved  to  be  dismissed  long  be- 
fore he  was.  Our  government  seems  to  have 
been  unwilling  to  act  on  facts  established  on 
unimpeachable  evidence.  If  any  one  still  under 
the  spell  of  old  ideas  finds  the  record  incredible 
or  the  complicity  of  the  German  Embassy  in 
Von  Papen's  felonious  attempts  doubtful,  he 
need  merely  scan  the  following  accounts  of 
the  funds  deposited  to  Von  Papen's  credit  di- 


GERMAN  INTBIGUE 

rectly  by  the  German  Embassy.  Some  of  these 
deposits  were  made  by  Ambassador  Ton  Bexn- 
storff  in  person: 

1914 
Sept.    9 $1,116.20 Bernstorff. 

"     24 1,100.00 

Oct.    21 1,000.00 

Nov.    4 583.10 German  Embassy. 

"     25 2,000.00 " 

Dec.     7 2,583.10 Bernstorff. 

1915 
Jan.     9 3,000.00 German  Embassy. 

"       15 2,000.00 "  " 

Feb.     5 2,000.00 Bernstorff. 

*'      24 1,500.00 German  Embassy. 

"      25 3,600.00 " 

"      20 1,749.30 " 

May  26 1,166.20 "  " 

June     1 583.10 "  " 

July  20 1,154.30 "  * 

Sept.    7 2,500.00 "  " 

Oct.    14 2,500.00 „      " 

In  December,  1915,  our  government  finally 
took  action  not  against  Von  Bernstorff  but 
against  Von  Bernstorff's  tools,  and  Von  Papen 
and  Boy-Ed  were  recalled.  On  that  occasion 
the  German  Government  at  Berlin  sent  to  the 


246  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAK 

United  States  for  publication  in  the  press,  the 
following  official  statement: 

"The  German  Government  has  naturally 
never  knowingly  accepted  the  support  of  any 
person,  group  of  persons,  society  or  organiza- 
tion seeking  to  promote  the  cause  of  Germany 
in  the  United  States  by  illegal  acts,  by  counsel 
of  violence,  by  contravention  of  law,  or  by  any 
means  whatever  that  could  offend  the  American 
people  in  the  pride  of  their  own  authority." 

It  is  difficult  to  assess  how  far  the  facts  re- 
counted influenced  our  government  or  people, 
for  it  is  impossible  to  say  how  much  was 
definitely  known  at  Washington  at  any  given 
tune.  That  these  demonstrations  of  German 
bad  faith  became  a  factor  in  determining  our 
attitude  will  be  plain  from  President  Wilson's 
statement  which  will  be  quoted  in  the  conclud- 
ing chapter. 


CHAPTER  IX 
PEACE  PROPOSALS 

AS  the  war  progressed  during  the  period  of 
•**-  the  negotiations  on  the  submarine  ques- 
tion two  things  had  become  clearer  with  ev- 
ery month.  In  the  first  place,  the  issues  of 
the  war,  which  had  at  first  been  deliberately 
obscured  by  German  diplomacy,  were  being 
gradually  disclosed  by  her  unmistakable  con- 
duct. In  the  second  place,  as  our  own  experi- 
ence proved,  and  as  the  President  with  his  usual 
clear-sightedness  had  discerned,  neutrality  in 
so  serious  a  conflict,  involving  such  momentous 
interests,  must  become  increasingly  difficult,  if 
not  impossible.  For  very  different  reasons, 
then,  by  a  curious  coincidence,  von  Bethmann- 
Hollweg  and  President  Wilson  put  forth  at 
the  same  time  proposals  for  peace.  Perhaps 
nothing  has  been  so  difficult  to  understand  as 
this  seemingly  similar  action,  for  to  the  world 
at  large  and,  indeed,  to  many  of  our  people 
the  very  divergent  motives  which  governed 

247 


248  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

the  Chancellor  and  our  President  were  not 
clearly  set  apart.  Let  us,  therefore,  begin  by 
saying  that  the  President's  action  had  been 
planned  long  before  he  knew  of  the  German 
intention,  and  if  we  would  understand  the  two 
proposals  we  must  consider  them  separately. 

Let  us  examine  therefore  in  some  detail  the 
German  situation.  With  the  publication  of 
the  statements  by  Doctor  Miihlon  and  Prince 
Lichnowsky,  the  belief  that  Germany  was  re- 
sponsible for  the  war  had  naturally  become  a 
conviction.  It  is  plain  also  that  the  German 
Government  began  it  as  a  war  of  aggression,  and 
though  many  of  its  subjects  were  and  are  still 
deluded,  the  progress  of  the  war  made  its  pur- 
poses clear,  even  though  with  characteristic 
duplicity  it  attempted  to  maintain  to  the  end  the 
fiction  that  it  was  fighting  in  self-defense. 

A  large  party,  indeed,  the  most  influential 
party  in  Germany,  which  included  the  militarists 
and  Pan-Germanists,  had,  as  we  have  seen,  in- 
tended that  the  new  war  prophesied  by  Bern- 
hardi,  and  looked  forward  to  as  "The  Day," 
should  at  last  give  Germany  a  considerable 
start  toward  the  realization  of  Gross  Deutsch- 


PEACE  PROPOSALS 

land  (greater  Germany).  The  programme,  as 
we  saw  in  Chapter  I,  included  annexation  east 
and  west.  The  adjoining  peoples  especially 
toward  the  east  in  Russia,  the  Balkans,  and 
Asia  Minor,  were  to  be  forced  into  the  Empire, 
and  the  Hohenzollerns,  who  had  made  them- 
selves masters  of  all  Germany,  were  in  turn 
to  make  themselves  masters  of  Europe  and  the 
world.  It  is  in  the  following  language  that 
Naumann,  a  deputy  of  the  Reichstag  and  one 
of  the  best-known  political  publicists  of  Ger- 
many expresses  it: 

"And  over  all  these;  over  the  Germans, 
French,  Danes,  and  Poles  in  the  German  Em- 
pire; over  the  Magyars,  Germans,  Roumanians, 
Slovaks,  Croats,  and  Serbs  in  Hungary;  over 
the  Germans,  Czechs,  Slovaks,  Poles,  and 
southern  Slavs  in  Austria,  let  us  imagine  once 
again  the  controlling  concept  of  Mid-Europe." 

That  Germany  planned  to  carry  out  this 
programme  in  the  World  War  became  clearer 
when  six  of  the  great  industrial  and  agricultural 
associations  of  Germany,  on  May  20,  1915, 
presented  their  petition  to  the  Chancellor. 

They  urged  that  Belgium  should  be  subject 


250  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

to  Germany  in  "military  and  tariff  matters, 
as  well  as  in  currency,  banking,  and  post." 
Northern  France  as  far  as  the  river  Somme 
should  also  be  annexed  for  "our  future  position 
at  sea,"  and  the  industrial  establishments  in 
the  annexed  territories  should  be  transferred 
to  German  hands.  From  Russia  part  of  the 
Baltic  Provinces  and  the  territories  to  the  south 
should  be  taken.  Germany's  need  of  new  agri- 
cultural territory,  of  new  mining  and  industrial 
districts,  especially  of  the  coal  and  iron  of  Bel- 
gium and  northern  France,  was  emphasized.* 
This  was  to  be  followed  just  a  month  later  by 
a  petition  signed  by  1,341  of  the  most  important 
members  of  the  university,  church,  official, 
legal,  literary,  and  artistic  circles. 

It  advocated  the  annexation  of  the  whole 
eastern  part  of  France,  from  Belfort  to  the 
coast,  and  the  transfer  of  the  business  under- 
takings and  estates  to  German  ownership.  Bel- 
gium was  to  be  held  and  the  inhabitants  allowed 
no  political  influence  in  the  empire.  The  oc- 
cupied part  of  Russia  was  to  be  retained  and 
the  land  turned  over  to  Germany.  Egypt  was 

*See  War  Cyclopaedia  article,  "No  Annexations,  No  Indemnities." 


PEACE  PROPOSALS  251 

to  be  taken  from  England.  As  to  indemnities, 
"we  ought  not  to  hesitate  to  impose  upon 
France  as  much  as  possible."* 

Subsequent  statements  to  the  same  purport 
could  be  added,  but  we  can  be  in  no  doubt  where 
Germany  stood  after  Ambassador  Gerard  s  re- 
port of  his  interview  with  Von  Bethmann-Holl- 
weg,  while  the  German  peace  terms  were  still 
before  the  world.  From  the  time  when  the 
question  of  peace  was  first  broached  Mr.  Gerard 
asked  the  Chancellor  and  other  officials  what 
Germany's  peace  terms  were.  He  could  never 
succeed  in  drawing  from  them  any  definite 
terms,  and  on  several  occasions  when  he  asked 
the  Chancellor  if  Germany  was  willing  to  with- 
draw from  Belgium,  the  Chancellor  replied: 
:'Yes,  but  with  guarantees."  He  seemed  un- 
willing to  explain,  but  when  pressed  and  asked 
directly  what  these  guarantees  were  he  replied: 

'We  must  possibly  have  the  forts  of  Liege 
and  Namur;  we  must  have  other  forts  and 
garrisons  throughout  Belgium.  We  must  have 
possession  of  the  railroad  lines.  We  must  have 
possession  of  the  ports  and  other  means  of  com- 

*War  Cyclopaedia,  ibid. 


«o«  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

munication.  The  Belgians  will  not  be  allowed 
to  maintain  an  army,  but  we  must  be  allowed 
to  retain  a  large  army  in  Belgium.  We  must 
hare  the  commercial  control  of  Belgium." 

Mr.  Gerard  explained  that  this  left  little 
for  the  Belgians  except  King  Albert's  right  to 
an  honor  guard  and  residence  in  Brussels.  The 
Chancellor  continued,  "We  cannot  allow  Bel- 
gium to  be  an  outpost  (Vorwerk)  of  England," 
and  Mr.  Gerard  replied:  ' :  'I  do  not  suppose 
the  English,  on  the  other  hand,  wish  it  to  be- 
come an  outpost  of  Germany,  especially  as 
von  Tirpitz  has  said  that  the  coast  of  Flanders 
should  be  retained  in  order  to  make  war  on 
England  and  America!'  I  continued,  'How 
about  Northern  France?'  He  said,  'We  are 
willing  to  leave  Northern  France,  but  there 
must  be  a  rectification  of  the  frontier.'  I  said, 
'How  about  the  Eastern  frontier?'  He  said, 
'We  must  have  a  very  substantial  rectification 
of  our  frontier.'  I  said, ' How  about  Roumania  ? ' 
He  said,  'We  shall  leave  Bulgaria  to  deal  with 
Roumania.'  I  said,  'How  about  Serbia?'  He 
said,  'A  very  small  Serbia  may  be  allowed  to 
exist,  but  that  is  a  question  for  Austria.  Aus- 


PEACE  PROPOSALS  233 

tria  must  be  left  to  do  what  she  wishes  to 
Italj,  and  we  must  have  indemnities  from 
all  countries  and  all  our  ships  and  colonies 
back/ 

"Of  course,  'rectification  of  the  frontier* 
is  a  polite  term  for  annexation."* 

We  have  considered  Germany's  war  aims. 
Let  us  now  consider  for  a  moment  the  military 
situation  when  she  made  her  proffers  in  Decem- 
ber, 1916.  She  had  been  amazingly  successful 
up  to  this  point  on  practically  all  fronts.  She 
occupied  practically  all  of  Belgium,  Serbia> 
Montenegro,  a  large  part  of  Roumania,  Poland, 
and  important  stretches  of  Russia,  and  the  coal 
and  iron  deposits  of  northern  France.  Russia 
at  this  time  was  still  in  the  war  and,  if  reorgan- 
ized and  provided  with  munitions,  the  lack 
of  which  had  caused  her  disastrous  retreat, 
she  would  become  again  a  formidable  enemy. 
The  threat  of  the  Anglo-French  successes  on  the 
Somme  (1916)  had  become  so  serious  that  the 
militar/  authorities  were  already  considering 
the  retreat  to  the  Hindenburg  line  in  France, 

*  "Mr  P»«*  Tears  in  Germaay,"  by  Junes  W.  Gerard,  pp.  S65-SM. 


254  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

and  Von  Bissing  had  expressed  the  fear  that  it 
might  become  necessary  to  evacuate  Belgium. 
The  situation,  therefore,  though  it  appeared 
outwardly  very  favorable,  was  in  reality  fraught 
with  grave  possibilities.  The  arch-enemy,  Eng- 
land, had  not  yet  been  subdued.  As  the  situa- 
tion presented  itself  to  the  Germans  it  was 
probably  in  terms  like  this:  We  must  either 
now  make  peace  on  the  basis  of  our  present 
very  large  holdings  of  territory,  and  prepare 
to  settle  the  score  with  England  later,  or  else 
start  a  war  to  the  death  on  England  and  de- 
stroy her  commerce  and  fleet. 

If  peace  could  be  made  on  the  basis  of  extent 
of  occupied  territory  (and  Germany  suggested 
no  other  basis),  she  could  not  help  coming  out 
with  enormously  extended  frontiers.  She  held 
all  the  trumps,  and  in  the  diplomatic  game  she 
must  inevitably  win.  If,  however,  the  Allies 
proved  unwilling  to  make  peace  on  such  terms, 
Germany  had  long  been  preparing  a  weapon 
which  the  infallible  military  authorities  as- 
sured her  would  starve  England  out  and  bring 
her  to  her  knees,  probably  within  three  months, 
within  six  months  at  the  latest.  That  weapon 


PEACE  PROPOSALS  255 

Was  the  submarine  ruthlessly  employed.  The 
one  drawback  was  the  possibility  of  driving 
sorely  tried  neutrals  into  the  arms  of  her 
enemies. 

From  the  American  attitude  on  the  Sussex 
affair  it  was  a  plain  inference  that  danger  threat- 
ened from  that  quarter.  The  plan  to  use  the 
submarine  ruthlessly  had,  however,  long  since 
been  decided  upon.  Indeed,  immediately  after 
the  receipt  in  Berlin  of  our  last  Sussex  note, 
Ambassador  Gerard  was  so  convinced  that  the 
rulers  of  Germany  would  at  some  future  date 
take  up  ruthless  submarine  warfare,  that  he 
warned  the  State  Department  that  such  war- 
fare would  possibly  come  in  the  autumn  or 
at  any  rate  about  February  or  March,  1917.* 
This  may  explain  why  President  Wilson  made 
the  speeches  which  so  startled  America  about 
the  great  dangers  that  threatened  and  the  pos- 
sibilities of  the  conflagration  reaching  us  from 
one  day  to  the  next.  When  later,  in  September, 
Mr.  Gerard  returned  to  the  United  States, 
Von  Jagow  insistently  urged  him  to  make  every 
effort  to  induce  the  President  to  take  steps 

*  Gerard,  "My  Four  Years  in  Germany."  p.  845. 


256  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

toward  bringing  about  peace.*  Germany  had 
been  industriously  building  submarines  and 
was  ready,  so  she  thought,  to  give  England 
the  death-stroke. 

Any  peace  that  would  be  concluded  would 
have  to  be  a  "German  peace,"  and  if  peace 
were  refused  the  blame  would  be  put  upon  the 
Allies.  The  United  States  and  other  neutrals 
could,  therefore,  offer  no  objection  to  Ger- 
many's using  the  submarine,  and  riding  rough- 
shod over  neutral  rights,  as  she  had  already 
attempted  to  do  at  the  time  of  the  declaration 
of  the  war  zone  in  February  of  1915. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  Reichstag,  therefore, 
on  December  12,  1916,  in  a  speech  in  which 
he  explained  the  very  favorable  situation  of 
the  German  armies,  and  denied  there  was  any 
starvation  or  any  disturbances  in  Germany, 
Von  Bethmann-Hollweg  announced  that  his 
Majesty  had  decided  to  stretch  out  his  hand 
for  peace  at  the  price  of  Germany's  "free  fu- 
ture." 

This  phrase,  whose  meaning,  like  a  gas,  was 
capable  of  indefinite  expansion,  was  one  of  the 

*  Gerard,  "My  Four  Yean  in  Germany,"  p.  84C. 


PEACE  PROPOSALS  £37 

type  that  is  to  be  found  in  every  German  pro- 
posal. The  communication  further  insisted 
that  the  Central  Powers  had  been  obliged  "to 
take  up  arms  to  defend  justice  and  the  liberty 
of  national  evolution."  How  they  had  defined 
justice  we  had  learned  from  their  actions  in 
Belgium  and  on  the  high  seas,  and  what  they 
meant  b/  national  evolution  is  plain  from  the 
exposition  by  Heir  Naumann  quoted  above. 
The  note  made  no 'concrete  suggestions.  Its 
two  material  assertions  were  that  the  Entente 
bore  the  responsibility  for  beginning  the  war 
and  that  the  Central  Powers  were  now  vic- 
torious. 

The  Allies  naturally,  in  the  phrase  of  Lloyd 
George,  refused  to  put  their  heads  into  a  noose 
of  which  Germany  held  the  free  end,  and  im- 
mediately and  from  practically  all  of  the  Allied 
countries  came  statements  to  the  effect  that 
they  could  not  deal  with  her  on  this  basis.* 

The  joint  Entente  reply  of  December  30, 
1916,  was  to  the  effect  that  a  mere  suggestion, 

*  Premier  Lloyd  George's  speech  in  the  House  of  Commons,  December 
19. 1910.  Premier  Briand's  speech  in  the  French  Chamber  of  Deputies, 
December  IS.  Resolution  of  the  Russian  Duma,  December  15.  Baron 
fionnino'a  speech  in  the  Italian  Chamber  of  Deputies,  December  18. 


258  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

without  statement  of  terms,  that  negotiations 
should  be  opened,  is  not  an  offer  of  peace,  and 
that  this  sham  proposal,  lacking  substance  and 
precision,  appeared  to  be  less  an  offer  of  peace 
than  a  war  manoeuvre,  which  in  fact  it  was. 
Considering  the  character  of  Germany's  two 
statements  and  her  previous  attitude  toward 
treaties  it  hardly  seemed  that  war  could  be 
ended  by  accepting  her  word. 

Let  us  turn  from  this  to  a  consideration  of 
the  course  of  our  own  President.  His  proposal 
had  undoubtedly  begun  to  take  shape  in  his 
own  mind  even  before  the  Sussex  affair  had 
been  settled.  In  an  address  at  Washington 
before  the  League  to  Enforce  Peace,  on  May 
27,  1916,  he  had  said: 

"We  are  participants  whether  we  would 
or  not,  in  the  life  of  the  world.  The  interests 
of  all  nations  are  our  own  also  .  .  .  what 
affects  mankind  is  inevitably  our  affair  as  well 
the  affair  of  the  nations  of  Europe  and  of  Asia." 

Against  her  will  America  had  become  con- 
vinced that  she  could  no  longer  live  in  the 
charmed  isolation  which  had  been  possible  in 
the  days  of  Washington  and  Monroe.  The 


PEACE  PROPOSALS  259 

submarine,  naval  cruiser  and  transport,  the  ca- 
ble and  wireless  had  brought  us,  whether  we 
would  or  not,  to  the  shores  of  Europe.  "Amer- 
ica up  to  the  present  time  has  been,  as  if  by 
deliberate  choice,  confined  and  provincial,  and 
it  will  be  impossible  for  her  to  remain  confined 
and  provincial.  Henceforth  she  belongs  to 
the  world  and  must  act  as  part  of  the  world. "; 
Furthermore,  as  the  President  was  to  announce 
at  Shadow  Lawn  on  October  16: 

"And  now,  by  circumstances  which  she  did 
not  choose,  over  which  she  had  no  control,  she 
[America]  has  been  thrust  out  into  the  great 
game  of  mankind,  on  the  stage  of  the  world 
itself,  and  here  she  must  know  what  she  is 
about,  and  no  nation  in  the  world  must  doubt 
that  all  her  forces  are  gathered  and  organized 
in  the  interest  of  just,  righteous,  and  humane 
government.'* 

His  whole  thought,  or  as  much  of  it  as  he 
dared  disclose  without  violating  state  secrets 
at  the  time,  was  even  more  clearly  put  in  his 
address  at  Cincinnati  on  October  26: 

"I  believe  that  the  business  of  neutrality 
is  over,  not  because  I  want  it  to  be  over,  but 

*  Presideat  Wilson,  October  5.  1916. 


360  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

I  mean  this,  that  war  now  has  such  a  scale  that 
the  position  of  neutrals  sooner  or  later  becomes 
intolerable." 

The  burden  of  unsettled  cases  against  the 
Allies  and  the  much  more  serious  questions 
against  Germany  was  becoming  so  great  that 
there  was  no  telling  when  we  might  be  forced 
to  break  under  the  strain.  The  belligerents 
naturally  tended  to  increase  their  pretensions. 
We  were  the  last  great  independent  neutral, 
yet  how  long  we  could  remain  so  was  doubtful. 
If  peace  was  to  come  before  we  were  forced 
to  enter  the  war,  we  must  help  to  make  it 
come.*  The  decision  about  the  submarine 
Deutschland  had  been  made  against  the  pro- 
test of  the  Allies.  Many  of  our  own  people 
were  protesting  against  the  conduct  of  the 
U-51  in  sinking  vessels  carrying  returning 
Americans  just  off  our  coast.  Our  own  people 
were  aroused  against  the  deportation  of  the 
innocent  civilian  population  in  Belgium  and 
northern  France.  Thousands  of  American  citi- 
zens were  protesting  to  Washington  against  the 

*  How  serious  this  strain  was  becoming  is  evident  from  Secretary 
Lansing's  statement  given  to  the  press  on  December  18, 1916,  and  imme- 
diately withdrawn. 


PEACE  PROPOSALS  261 

outrage  to  humanity  which  we  could  not  sit 
by  and  regard  with  unconcern  under  penalty 
of  stultifying  ourselves.  This  had  impressed 
Washington  so  seriously  that  it  had  become  the 
subject  of  correspondence  with  our  ministers 
abroad.* 

The  reports  of  Germany's  plans  which  Am- 
bassador Gerard  brought  to  Washington  made 
it  a  case  of  now  or  never.  For  this  reason  and 
without  knowing  anything  about  the  German 
peace  manoeuvre,  and  doubtless  without  having 
been  impressed  by  Von  Jagow's  urging,  Presi- 
dent Wilson  prepared  an  identic  note  to  all  the 
belligerents,  which  makes  no  pretense  of  being 
purely  disinterested. 

"In  the  measures  to  be  taken  to  secure  the 
future  peace  of  the  world  the  people  and 
Government  of  the  United  States  are  as  vitally 
and  as  directly  interested  as  the  Governments 
now  at  war.  Their  interest,  moreover,  in  the 
means  to  be  adopted  to  relieve  the  smaller  and 
weaker  peoples  of  the  world  of  the  peril  of  wrong 
and  violence  is  as  quick  and  ardent  as  that  of 
any  other  people  or  Government.  They  stand 

*  Department  of  State,  Diplomatic  Correspondence  with  Belligerent 
Governments  Relating  to  Neutral  Rights  and  Duties,  European  War, 
No.  4,  pp.  357-S7S. 


262  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

ready,  and  even  eager,  to  co-operate  in  the 
accomplishment  of  these  ends,  when  the  war 
is  over,  with  every  influence  and  resource  at 
their  command.  But  the  war  must  first  be 
concluded.  The  terms  upon  which  it  is  to  be 
concluded  they  are  not  at  liberty  to  suggest; 
but  the  President  does  feel  that  it  is  his  right 
and  his  duty  to  point  out  their  intimate  in- 
terest in  its  conclusion,  lest  it  should  presently 
be  too  late  to  accomplish  the  greater  things 
which  lie  beyond  its  conclusion,  lest  the  situa- 
tion of  neutral  nations,  now  exceedingly  hard 
to  endure,  be  rendered  altogether  intolerable, 
and  lest,  more  than  all,  an  injury  be  done  civili- 
zation itself  which  can  never  be  atoned  for  or 
repaired."  * 

; 

He  asked  therefore  that  the  leaders  of  the 
several  belligerents  make  statements  of  the 
"precise  objects  which  would,  if  attained, 
satisfy  them  and  their  people  that  the  war  had 
been  fought  out."  It  was  evident  that  he  hoped 
to  bring  about  some  "concert  of  free  peoples," 
before  "resentments  were  kindled  that  could 
never  cool  and  despairs  engendered  from  which 
there  could  be  no  recovery." 

The  spirit  of  this  communication  was  worlds 
removed  from  that  of  Germany,  and  nothing 

*  President  Wilson's  Peace  Note,  December  18,  1916. 


PEACE  PROPOSALS  263 

proved  the  insincerity  of  the  German  claim 
so  completely  as  her  answer  to  this  frank  and 
direct  request.  This  idea  of  a  peace  based  on 
principles  plainly  embarrassed  her.  She  replied 
lamely  and  evasively  that  it  was  the  view 
of  the  Imperial  Government  "that  the  great 
work  for  the  prevention  of  future  wars  can  first 
be  taken  up  only  after  the  ending  of  the  present 
conflict  of  exhaustion."  The  reply  proved,  as 
all  German  history  might  have  led  us  to  foresee, 
that  Germany  wanted  no  concert  of  free  peoples 
and  no  league  to  enforce  peace.  She  did  not 
wish  to  be  forced  to  any  statement  of  principle, 
so  contented  herself  with  assurances  of  friend- 
ship and  the  suggestion  that  "a  direct  exchange 
of  views  appears  to  the  Imperial  Government 
as  the  most  suitable  way  of  arriving  at  the  de- 
sired result."  In  other  words  she  wanted  a 
peace  not  based  on  any  recognition  of  the  rights 
of  small  nations  or  on  any  other  recognized 
principle  that  conflicted  with  her  notion  of  her 
own  "national  evolution"  and  "free  future."  * 

*  German  Reply  to  President  Wilson's  Peace  Note,  December  26, 1916. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  German  Government  made  no  definite 
proposal  and  did  not  suggest  even  a  return  to  the  "status  quo  ante  bel- 
lum"  either  in  her  own  bid  for  peace  or  in  her  reply  to  President  Wilson. 


264  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

The  reply  of  the  Allies  was  far  more  definite. 
They  were  heartily  in  favor  of  the  "creation 
of  a  league  of  nations  to  insure  peace  and  jus- 
tice throughout  the  world,"  and  recognized  "all 
the  advantages  for  the  cause  of  humanity  and 
civilization  which  the  institution  of  interna- 
tional agreements  destined  to  avoid  violent  con- 
flict between  nations  would  prevent."*  They 
insisted,  however,  with  right  that  the  Central 
Empires  were  responsible  for  the  war,  and  pro- 
tested against  the  statement  made  in  the  Presi- 
dent's request  that  all  of  the  belligerents  seemed 
to  be  fighting  for  the  same  thing.  For  to  the 
last  the  President  had  remained  charitable  and 
refrained  from  judging  the  motives  of  the  Cen- 
tral Powers.  It  was  natural,  however,  that 
the  Allies  should  have  refused  to  allow  them- 
selves to  be  classed  on  the  same  footing  with 
the  Central  Powers,  and  Belgium  quite  cor- 

Von  Bethmann-Hollweg's  statement  to  Ambassador  Gerard  shows  that 
she  counted  on  much  more  than  this.  In  President  Wilson's  Note  to 
the  Russian  People  of  June  9,  1917,  he  makes  plain  that  the  status  quo 
ante  could  not  be  accepted  as  a  satisfactory  basis  for  future  peace.  "  It 
was  the  status  quo  ante  out  of  which  this  iniquitous  war  issued  forth, 
the  power  of  the  Imperial  German  Government  within  the  empire  and 
its  wide-spread  domination  and  influence  outside  that  empire.  That 
status  must  be  altered  in  such  fashion  as  to  prevent  any  such  hideous 
thing  from  ever  happening  again." 

*  Entente  Reply  to  President  Wilson's  Peace  Note,  January  10,  1917. 


PEACE  PROPOSALS  265 

rectly  and  in  a  spirit  of  wounded  aggrievance 
sent  a  separate  note  in  which  she  claimed  the 
proud  right  to  say  that  she  had  taken  up  arms 
to  defend  her  existence,  and  that  it  was  unfair 
to  think  that  Germany  was  fighting  for  the 
same  principle  or  the  same  ends.*  All  of  the 
Allies,  however,  agreed  that  they  wished  to 
attain  a  peace  which  would  assure  them 
"reparation,  restitution,  and  guarantees,"  to 
which  they  held  themselves  entitled  by  the 
aggressions  committed  against  them.  With 
regard  to  the  conditions  of  peace  for  the  dif- 
ferent members  of  the  Entente  they  specified 
how  in  general  these  principles  must  be  applied, 
though  they  could  not  give  all  of  the  details 
until  the  beginning  of  negotiations.  They 
closed  with  their  assurance  that  they  wished 
a  peace  based  upon  principles  of  liberty  and 
justice,  and  the  inviolable  fidelity  to  interna- 
tional obligations.  The  results  were  exactly 
what  might  have  been  expected.  Germany 
could  hardly  have  set  forth  a  principle  for  which 
she  was  fighting,  as  there  was  none  which  she 
had  not  violated  in  her  fight.  She  wanted  an- 

*  Belgiam  Note  Supplementary  to  Entente  Reply. 


266  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

nexations  and  prestige.  Though  the  President 
was  probably  disappointed  since  he  may  have 
hoped  the  military  situation  of  Germany  was 
serious  enough  to  abate  her  pretensions,  yet 
he  could  hardly  have  expected  much  more. 
He  has  the  satisfaction,  however,  of  having 
given  Germany  every  opportunity  and  made 
her  every  concession  consistent  with  our  honor 
and  independence.  The  answer  of  Germany 
indicated  that  further  efforts  along  this  line 
would  be  useless,  but  the  President  made  one 
more  desperate  and  unavailing  effort  by  stat- 
ing before  Congress  on  January  22,  1917,  the 
bases  and  principles  of  the  peace  which  Amer- 
ica could  accept,  ratify,  and  assist  in  maintain- 
ing. It  was  to  be  the  peace  of  justice.  The 
rights  of  all  peoples  to  determine  their  govern- 
ment in  the  future  were  to  be  recognized  as 
well  as  the  rights  of  all  to  the  free  highways 
of  the  sea  (for  which  Germany  claimed  to  be 
contending),  and  this  peace  was  to  be  achieved 
without  the  crushing  of  any  of  the  belligerents. 
It  was  to  be  the  "peace  without  victory."  But 
all  his  eloquence  and  good-will  were  wasted 
on  the  leaders  of  Germany.  They  were  not 


PEACE  PROPOSALS  267 

willing  to  consider  proposals  of  principles  and 
had  already  made  their  choice.  Either  the 
Allies  must  accept  a  German  peace  or  America 
would  have  to  accept  the  last  reckless  phase  of 
ruthlessness. 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  FINAL  CHALLENGE 

WHILE  the  American  people  were  still 
earnestly  discussing  President  Wilson's 
proposals  for  a  world  peace  made  in  his  ad- 
dress before  the  Senate  on  January  22,  the 
German  ambassador  handed  to  the  Secretary 
of  State  along  with  a  formal  note  a  memoran- 
dum which  contained  the  following  statement: 

"The  Imperial  Government,  therefore,  does 
not  doubt  that  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  will  understand  the  situation  thus  forced 
upon  Germany  by  the  Entente  Allies*  brutal 
methods  of  war  and  by  their  determination 
to  destroy  the  Central  Powers,  and  that  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  will  further 
realize  that  the  now  openly  disclosed  intentions 
of  the  Entente  Allies  give  back  to  Germany 
the  freedom  of  action  which  she  reserved  in 
her  note  addressed  to  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  on  May  4,  1916.* 

"Under  these  circumstances  Germany  will 
meet  the  illegal  measures  of  her  enemies  by 

*  Any  such  interpretation  of  the  German  note  had  been  specifically 
precluded  by  the  American  note  of  May  8,  1916.     See  Chapter  VIII. 

268 


THE  FINAL  CHALLENGE  269 

forcibly  preventing  after  February  1,  1917, 
in  a  zone  around  Great  Britain,  France,  Italy, 
and  in  the  eastern  Mediterranean  all  naviga- 
tion, that  of  neutrals  included,  from  and  to 
France,  etc.  All  ships  met  within  the  zone  will 
be  sunk."  * 

The  precipitancy  of  Germany's  action 
showed  that  this  move  had  been  prepared  in 
advance,  that  she  had  already  decided  upon 
her  second  alternative,  and  to  any  negotiated 
peace  of  principle  she  preferred  a  ruthless  war. 
The  hollowness  of  her  peace  proposals  had  al- 
ready become  painfully  evident.  She  had  made 
the  manoeuvre  for  the  reasons  discussed  in  the 
last  chapter  and  with  the  hope  of  dividing  the 
belligerent  peoples  and  of  making  neutrals  be- 
lieve that  a  "new  situation"  had  been  created. 

Apart  from  the  great  zones  declared  in  the 
Mediterranean  by  her  obedient  ally,  Austria- 
Hungary,  prohibited  zones  extended  in  a  broad 
belt  from  Spain  to  the  Faroe  Islands.  If  she 
could  do  this  there  was  no  reason  why  she 
should  not  extend  it  to  our  own  three-mile 
limit,  and,  indeed,  to  our  very  shores.  But 

*  Department  of  State,  Diplomatic  Correspondence  with  Belligerent 
Governments,  etc..  European  War,  No.  4,  pp.  405-407. 


270  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

more  serious  and  amazing  than  the  decree  of 
this  zone  itself  was  the  curt  statement  that 
all  ships  met  within  the  zone  would  be  sunk. 

We  had  announced  in  our  note  to  Germany 
of  April  18,  1916,*  that,  unless  the  German 
Government  immediately  declared  and  effected 
an  abandonment  of  its  present  methods  of  sub- 
marine warfare,  the  "  Government  of  the  United 
States  could  have  no  choice  but  to  sever  diplo- 
matic relations  with  the  German  Empire  alto- 
gether." There  was,  therefore,  no  possibility 
of  argument  or  discussion.  Germany  declared 
not  only  that  she  expected  to  revert  to  the 
methods  she  had  employed  before  the  sinking 
of  the  Sussex,  but  that  she  planned  to  enter 
upon  a  warfare  even  more  ruthless  which  would 
accept  no  restraint  of  law  whatever.  She  was 
threatening  not  only  to  violate  all  rules  of 
international  law,  but  also  the  solemn  promise 
made  to  the  United  States. 

It  was  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  the 
President  for  a  time  should  have  been  non- 
plussed. He  refused  to  believe  that  Germany 
could  mean  what  she  seemed  to  say  and  spoke 
like  an  honest  man,  who,  stunned  by  a  blow, 

*  Cf.  Chapter  VIII. 


THE  FINAL  CHALLENGE  271 

still  feels  that  his  hurt  may  be  due  not  to  wil- 
ful attack  but  to  some  incomprehensible  ac- 
cident. Though  his  course  of  action  was  clearly 
indicated,  he  still  desired  to  be  charitable  in 
his  interpretation.  In  his  address  to  Congress 
on  February  3,  he  was  to  take  Congress  and 
the  people  very  fully  into  his  confidence: 

"Notwithstanding  this  unexpected  action  of 
the  German  Government,  this  sudden  and 
deeply  deplorable  renunciation  of  its  assurances, 
given  this  Government  at  one  of  the  most  criti- 
cal moments  of  tension  in  the  relations  of  the 
two  governments,  I  refuse  to  believe  that  it  is 
the  intention  of  the  German  authorities  to  do 
in  fact  what  they  have  warned  us  they  will  feel 
at  liberty  to  do.  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  be- 
lieve that  they  will  indeed  pay  no  regard  to  the 
ancient  friendship*  between  their  people  and 

*  This  traditional  friendship  had  been  insisted  upon  in  many  of  the 
German  communications  with  our  Government.  The  following  are 
expressions  of  German  opinion  on  the  United  States  at  the  time  of  the 
war  with  Spain: 

The  Cologne  Zeitung  wrote,  on  April  22,  1898:  "Our  sympathy  be- 
longs to  Spain,  because  she  represents  international  law." 

The  Kreutzzeitung  of  April  28:  "The  lowest  motives  brought  about 
this  war." 

Of  April  27:  "Open  greed  for  plunder  occasioned  this  war." 

The  Vossische  Zeitung  of  April  8:  "The  American  people  have  not  the 
right  to  assume  at  once  the  r6le  of  judge  and  dictator." 

Of  April  10:  "The  whole  American  republic  was  founded  upon  the 
violation  of  the  rights  of  other  peoples." 

The  Taegliche  Rundschau:  "American  politicians  are  pocketbook  pa- 
triots, who  allow  themselves  to  be  bought  and  sold  by  the  industrial 
millionaires.  Their  God  is  Mammon,  and  they  betray  their  own  coun- 
try." 


272  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

our  own  or  to  the  solemn  obligations  which 
have  been  exchanged  between  them,  and  destroy 
American  ships  and  take  the  lives  of  American 
citizens  in  the  wilful  prosecution  of  the  ruthless 
naval  programme  they  have  announced  their 
intention  to  adopt. 

"Only  actual  overt  acts  on  their  part  can 
make  me  believe  it  even  now." 

There  was  no  possible  alternative,  and  pass- 
ports were,  therefore,  issued  to  Ambassador 
von  Bernstorff  by  Secretary  of  State  Lansing 
on  this  eventful  date. 

Let  us  try  to  understand  why  Germany  took 
upon  herself  the  guilt  for  this  additional  breach 
of  faith.  But  let  us  not  make  the  mistake  of 
attributing  to  Germany  the  ordinary  principles 
of  political  morality.  The  explanation  was 
simple,  and  was  bluntly  given  to  the  Reichstag 
by  the  German  Chancellor  in  an  address  of 
January  31.  He  had  been  Chancellor  at  the 
time  of  the  Sussex  negotiations,  and  the  promise 
made  by  Germany  had  been  freely  given  after 
due  deliberation  and  with  the  alternative  of 
severing  diplomatic  relations  frankly  offered. 
"The  question  of  the  U-boat  war,  as  the  gentle- 
men of  the  Reichstag  will  remember,  has  oc- 


THE  FINAL  CHALLENGE  273 

cupied  us  three  times  in  this  committee,  in 
March,  May,  and  September,  last  year  [1916]. 
On  each  occasion  in  an  exhaustive  statement 
I  expounded  for  and  against  in  this  question." 
(The  meeting  in  May  was  evidently  the  one 
held  at  the  time  when,  after  weighing  all  sides 
of  the  question,  he  and  his  government  had 
made  the  promise  to  America.)  "I  emphasized 
on  each  occasion,"  continued  Von  Bethmann- 
Hollweg,  "that  ...  I  was  speaking  pro  tern- 
pore,  and  not  as  a  supporter  in  principle  or  an 
opponent  in  principle  of  the  unrestricted  em- 
ployment of  the  U-boats,  but  in  consideration 
of  the  military,  political,  and  economic  situa- 
tion as  a  whole. 

"I  always  proceeded  from  the  standpoint  as 
to  whether  an  unrestricted  U-boat  war  would 
bring  us  nearer  to  a  victorious  peace  or  not. 
Every  means,  I  said  in  March,  that  is  calcu- 
lated to  shorten  the  war  is  the  humanest  policy 
to  follow.  When  the  most  ruthless  methods 
are  considered  as  the  best  calculated  to  lead 
us  to  a  victory  and  to  a  swift  victory,  I  said  at 
that  time,  then  they  must  be  employed." 

He  had  confessed  his  guilt  in  the  case  of  Bel- 


274  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

gium  at  the  beginning  of  the  war.     Let  us  see 
how  he  will  do  it  now.     He  proceeded: 

"This  moment  has  now  arrived.  Last  Au- 
tumn the  time  was  not  yet  ripe,  but  to-day  the 
moment  has  come  when,  with  the  greatest 
prospect  of  success,  we  can  undertake  this  enter- 
prise. We  must,  therefore,  not  wait  any  longer. 
Where  has  there  been  a  change? 

"In  the  first  place,  the  most  important  fact 
of  all  is  that  the  number  of  our  submarines 
has  very  considerably  increased  as  compared 
with  last  spring,  and  thereby  a  firm  basis  has 
been  created  for  success.  The  second  code- 
cisive  reason  is  the  bad  wheat  harvest  of  the 
world." 

We  would  expect  that  he  would  now  go  on 
to  mention  the  third  and  all-important  con- 
sideration, a  solemn  promise  given  to  another 
great  state.  We  are  mistaken.  The  promise 
made  is  not  even  mentioned.  It  had  been  given 
only  to  deceive  America  and  to  give  Germany 
time  to  build  more  submarines  which  she  had 
evidently  been  doing  at  the  very  time  when 
the  promise  was  made.  Unabashed,  he  con- 
tinued : 

"If  we  may  now  venture  to  estimate  the 
positive  advantages  of  an  unrestricted  U-boat 


THE  FINAL  CHALLENGE  275 

war  at  a  very  much  higher  value  than  last 
spring,  the  dangers  which  arise  for  us  from 
the  U-boat  *var  have  correspondingly  decreased 
since  that  time." 

He  had  consulted  not  the  German  people, 
he  had  consulted  not  his  conscience,  he  had 
consulted  Hindenburg,  and  explained  that,  "A 
few  days  ago  Marshal  von  Hindenburg  described 
to  me  the  situation  as  follows:  'Our  front  stands 
firm  on  all  sides.  We  have  everywhere  the 
requisite  reserves.  The  spirit  of  the  troops  is 
good  and  confident.  The  military  situation,  as 
a  whole,  permits  us  to  accept  all  consequences 
which  an  unrestricted  U-boat  war  may  bring 
about,  and  as  this  U-boat  war  in  all  circum- 
stances is  the  means  to  injure  our  enemies  most 
grievously,  it  must  be  begun.' ' 

This  was  all,  but  it  threw  a  long  stream  of 
light  over  the  whole  course  of  the  war  to  which 
we  had  deliberately  and  officially  closed  our 
eyes.  It  explained  to  us  what  had  happened  to 
the  treaty  guaranteeing  Belgium,  it  explained  to 
us  at  last,  and  made  only  too  clear,  the  reasons 
for  German  atrocities  on  land  and  sea.  It  gave 
us  a  stake  in  this  war.  It  was  no  longer  for  us 


276  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

merely  a  question  of  humanity  or  of  principle. 
It  was  a  question  of  immediate  interest,  of  self- 
defense  against  this  hopelessly  aggressive  and 
militaristic  power  whose  policy  was  again 
threatening  not  only  the  foundations  of  inter- 
national law  but  ourselves. 

The  principle  or  rather  the  excuse  of  "mili- 
tary necessity"  had  become  now  merely  mili- 
tary expediency.  As  Secretary  of  State  Lan- 
sing was  to  put  it: 

"It  is  this  disclosure  of  the  character  of  the 
Imperial  German  Government  which  is  the  un- 
derlying cause  of  our  entry  into  the  war.  We 
had  doubted,  or  at  least  many  Americans  had 
doubted,  the  evil  purposes  of  the  rulers  of 
Germany.  Doubt  remained  no  longer. 

"In  the  light  of  events  we  could  read  the 
past,  and  see  that  for  a  quarter  of  a  century 
the  absorbing  ambition  of  the  military  oligarchy 
which  was  the  master  of  the  German  Empire 
was  for  world  dominion.  Every  agency  in  the 
fields  of  commerce,  industry,  science,  and  diplo- 
macy had  been  directed  by  the  German  Gov- 
ernment to  this  supreme  end.  Philosophers 
and  preachers  taught  that  the  destiny  of  Ger- 
many was  to  rule  the  world,  thus  preparing 
the  minds  of  the  German  people  for  the  time 
when  the  mighty  engine  which  the  German 
Government  had  constructed  should  crush  all 


THE  FINAL  CHALLENGE  277 

opposition   and   the  German    Emperor  should 
rule  supreme."  * 

We  were  not  dealing  with  a  people,  we  were 
dealing  with  a  group  of  irresponsible  plotters 
who  had  long  been  accepted  as  rulers  by  a 
people  obsessed  by  the  idea  of  their  own  su- 
periority, which  raised  them  not  only  above 
other  states,  but  above  the  right  and  those 
laws  on  which  all  states  are  based.  If  then 
we  came  to  speak  of  a  war  between  democracy 
and  autocracy,  what  we  meant  will  be  clear  if 
we  compare  Germany's  course  in  this  affair 
with  President  Wilson's,  or  consider  for  a  mo- 
ment a  sentence  in  the  First  Inaugural  of  the 
first  President  of  the  Republic.  At  that  time 
Washington  had  announced: 

"  .  .  .  The  foundation  of  our  national  policy 
will  be  laid  in  the  pure  and  immutable  prin- 
ciples of  private  morality,  and  the  pre-eminence 
of  free  government  be  exemplified  by  all  the 
attributes  which  can  win  the  affection  of  its 
citizens  and  command  the  respect  of  the  world. 
I  dwell  on  this  prospect  with  every  satisfaction 
which  an  ardent  love  for  my  country  can  in- 

*  Cf.  "A  War  of  Self-Defense,"  by  Robert  Lansing.     Louis  F.  Post. 
Committee  on  Public  Information,  p.  4. 


278  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

spire,  since  there  is  no  truth  more  thoroughly 
established  than  that  there  exists  in  the 
economy  and  course  of  nature  an  indissoluble 
union  between  virtue  and  happiness;  between 
duty  and  advantage;  between  the  genuine 
maxims  of  an  honest  and  magnanimous  policy 
and  the  solid  rewards  of  public  prosperity  and 
felicity;  since  we  ought  to  be  no  less  persuaded 
that  the  propitious  smiles  of  Heaven  can  never 
be  expected  on  a  nation  that  disregards  the 
eternal  rules  of  order  and  right  which  Heaven 
itself  has  ordained;  and  since  the  preservation 
of  the  sacred  fire  of  liberty  and  the  destiny  of 
the  republican  model  of  government  are  justly 
considered,  perhaps,  as  deeply,  as  finally,  staked 
on  the  experiment  intrusted  to  the  hands  of 
the  American  people." 

Instead  of  any  such  principle,  whenever  a 
question  of  German  policy  was  to  be  decided, 
the  Chancellor,  who  was  not  responsible  to  any 
Reichstag  or  any  people,  consulted  a  Hinden- 
burg  or  a  Von  Tirpitz  or  a  Ludendorff,  and 
in  secret  decided  upon  a  war  or  the  violation 
of  a  treaty.  Upon  their  action  there  was  no 
check,  and  argument  was  useless,  since  their 
promises  were  without  value.  Aggression  was 
the  very  condition  of  the  life  of  this  militaristic 
state,  and  the  natural  attitude  of  all  other  na- 


THE  FINAL  CHALLENGE  279 

tions  had,  therefore,  to  be  one  of  self-defense  un- 
til the  present  Germany  was  overthrown. 

The  fundamental  antagonisms  which  set  our- 
selves and  Prussia  asunder  were  now  clear  as 
day. 

It  was  plain  also  why  Germany  received 
coldly  President  Wilson's  proposal  for  a  Concert 
of  Powers.  It  was  also  plain  why  at  The  Hague 
Conference  she  had  stood  in  the  way  of  general 
disarmament.  The]  army  was  the  life  of  this 
state,  its  one  reason  for  being,  and  Professor 
Delbriick  wrote  in  1914: 

"Any  one  who  has  any  familiarity  at  all  with 
our  officers  and  generals  knows  that  it  would 
take  another  Sedan,  inflicted  on  us  instead  of 
by  us,  before  they  would  acquiesce  in  the  con- 
trol of  the  army  by  the  German  Parliament." 

We  now  understood  why  she  was  the  only 
one  of  the  great  Powers  that  had  refused  to 
sign  with  us  an  arbitration  treaty.  Weak  na- 
tions she  crushed  without  regard  or  mercy.  In 
this  way  she  had  started  the  recent  war  on 
Serbia,  and  had  achieved  her  first  characteristic 
triumph  in  Belgium.  Strong  nations,  of  whose 
power  she  was  more  jealous  and  against  whom 


280  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

her  animosity  was  therefore  more  particularly 
directed,  she  circumvented  by  ruse  and  at- 
tempted to  destroy  by  sudden  treacherous 
strokes.  The  difference  between  the  spirit  of 
the  two  nations  was  illustrated  in  the  treatment 
accorded  to  the  two  departing  ambassadors. 
The  German  consular  officials  and  representa- 
tives were  treated  with  courtesy,  safe-conducts 
were  procured  for  them,  and  on  February  14 
they  departed  for  Europe.  Ambassador  Gerard, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  held  in  Berlin  against 
his  will  from  Monday  until  Saturday,  much  of 
that  time  in  his  house,  cut  off  from  communica- 
tion with  the  outside  world,  his  telephone  for 
a  time  having  been  disconnected  and  his  mail 
withheld.  He  was  for  some  days  unable  to 
communicate  with  other  officers  or  his  govern- 
ment, or  to  transmit  instructions  to  consular 
officials.  They  attempted  to  dragoon  him  into 
signing  a  treaty,  while  thus  kept  in  ignorance 
of  events,  and  it  was  only  after  this  was  dis- 
covered to  be  impossible  that  he  was  allowed 
to  proceed  on  his  way  to  Switzerland.*  Many 
Americans,  from  having  heard  it  repeated  so 

*  ''My  Pour  Years  in  Germany,"  p.  383. 


THE  FINAL   CHALLENGE  281 

frequently  in  our  diplomatic  correspondence, 
had  come  to  believe  that  there  was  a  particular 
friendship  existing  between  the  German  people 
and  ourselves.  When  Ambassador  Gerard  re- 
turned and  was  free  to  speak,  he  told  a  quite 
different  story.  Very  early  in  the  war  the  Amer- 
ican flag  was  covered  with  crape  and  laid  at 
the  feet  of  the  statue  of  Frederick  the  Great 
with  a  placard  insulting  our  government,  and 
he  had  had  difficulty  in  having  it  removed. 

During  the  winter  of  the  submarine  con- 
troversy before  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania, 
one  of  the  most  conservative  newspapers,  the 
Frankfurter  Zeitung,  printed  an  interview  with 
Von  Tirpitz  thinly  veiled  as  a  high  naval  au- 
thority. In  this  interview  the  "high  naval 
authority"  advocated  ruthless  submarine  war 
with  England,  promising  to  effect  thereby  the 
speedy  surrender  of  that  country.  After  the 
surrender,  which  was  to  include  the  whole 
British  fleet,  the  German  fleet  with  this  acces- 
sion of  strength  was  to  sail  for  America  and 
exact  from  us  indemnities  sufficient  to  pay  the 
whole  cost  of  the  war. 

After  his  fall  Von  Tirpitz,  in  a  letter  to  some 


282  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

admirers  who  had  sent  him  verses  and  a  wreath, 
advocated  holding  the  coast  of  Flanders  as 
a  necessity  for  the  war  against  England  and 
America.* 

Zimmermann  had  made  it  plain  to  Colonel 
House  on  the  latter's  visit  that  Germany  was 
ready  to  go  to  war  with  the  United  States. 
They  were  the  more  ready  to  do  this  as  they 
scorned  us  for  our  impotence  and  insisted  that 
"public  sentiment  of  your  country  is  such  that 
you  will  not  be  able  to  raise  an  army  large 
enough  to  make  any  impression."  f 

Germany's  purposes  toward  us  were  then 
or  were  soon  to  become  evident.  With  char- 
acteristic indirection  before  his  departure,  Von 
Bernstorff  requested  the  Swiss  Minister  to  say 
that  the  German  Government  was  now  as  be- 
fore willing  to  negotiate  with  the  United 
States,  "providing  that  the  commercial  blockade 
against  England  will  not  be  broken  thereby." 
Secretary  Lansing  answered  to  the  effect  "that 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  would 
gladly  discuss  with  the  German  Government 
any  questions  it  might  propose  for  discussion 

*  Gerard,  "My  Four  Years  in  Germany,"  p.  249.          f  Ibid.,  p.  336. 


THE  FINAL  CHALLENGE  283 

were  it  to  withdraw  its  proclamation  of  the 
31st  of  January  in  which  and  without  previous 
intimation  of  any  kind  it  cancelled  the  assur- 
ances which  it  had  given."  * 

Ambassador  von  Bernstorff  further  requested 
urgently  that  no  measures  be  taken  until  he 
should  have  had  an  opportunity  of  laying  the 
matter  before  his  own  government.  The  Presi- 
dent was  evidently  willing  to  make  this  further 
concession,  and  took  no  decisive  action  until 
he  addressed  Congress  on  February  26,  asking 
for  a  grant  of  power.  He  was  still  unwilling 
to  make  war  and  hoped  that  "it  will  not  be 
necessary  to  put  armed  forces  anywhere  into 
action,"  though  he  held  that  we  must  defend 
our  commerce  and  the  lives  of  our  people  with 
great  and  steadfast  purpose.  Germany  had 
evidently  already  put  her  threat  into  execution 
and  had  sunk  on  February  3  the  American 
ship  Housatonic,  and  on  February  13  the  Lyman 
M.  Law.  The  President,  therefore,  wished 
authorization  to  supply  our  merchant  ships 
"with  defensive  arms  should  that  become  neces- 

*  Department  of  State,  Diplomatic  Correspondence  with  Belligerent 
Governments  Relating  to  Neutral  Rights  and  Duties.  European  War, 
No.  4.  pp.  414-415. 


284  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

sary,  and  with  the  means  of  using  them,  and 
to  employ  any  other  instrumentalities  or 
methods  that  may  be  necessary  and  adequate 
to  protect  our  ships  and  their  cargoes  in  their 
peaceful  and  legitimate  pursuits  of  the  seas." 
Congress  was  overwhelmingly  in  favor  of  grant- 
ing this  request  and  more  than  five  hundred 
out  of  531  members  of  the  two  Houses  of  Con- 
gress were  ready  and  eager  to  act.  But  a  fili- 
buster by  a  handful  of  "wilful  men"  led  by 
Senator  LaFollette  prolonged  debate  until  the 
expiration  of  the  congressional  session  March 
4,  and  made  action  impossible.  On  March  12, 
however,  orders  were  finally  issued  to  arm 
American  ships  against  submarines. 

There  could  no  longer  be  any  doubt  about 
Germany's  intentions.  On  March  2,  she  had 
continued  the  sinking  of  American  vessels, 
and  there  were  added  to  the  list  the  Algonquin, 
March  2,  1917;  the  Vigilancia,  March  16;  the 
City  of  Memphis  and  the  Illinois,  March  17; 
the  Healdton  March  21  (the  latter  sunk  even 
outside  the  prohibited  zone);  and  the  Aztec, 

*  The  right  to  do  this  is  plainly  implied  in  the  President's  constitu- 
tional powers.  He  wished,  however,  to  feel  that  he  had  the  authority 
of  Congress  behind  him. 


THE   FINAL   CHALLENGE  285 

April  1.  Up  to  this  time  226  Americans,  many 
of  them  women  and  children,  had  lost  their 
lives  by  the  action  of  German  submarines.  It 
was  not  necessary  after  what  had  already  hap- 
pened for  the  German  Government  to  give  us 
any  further  evidence  of  perfidy.  It  was,  how- 
ever, to  do  so,  and  to  allow  by  mischance  to 
fall  into  our  hands  a  despatch  which  is  remark- 
able, even  in  the  history  of  her  own  tortuous 
and  dishonest  diplomacy.  The  document  came 
to  the  knowledge  of  our  State  Department  dur- 
ing the  last  week  in  February.  It  had  been 
forwarded  by  Zimmermann,  the  German  For- 
eign Minister  to  the  German  Minister  in  Mex- 
ico. It  had  been  written  on  January  19,  in 
other  words,  while  we  were  still  discussing 
peace,  three  days  before  President  Wilson  is- 
sued his  proposal  for  world  peace,  and  twelve 
days  before  Germany  announced  her  intention 
of  resuming  unrestricted  submarine  warfare. 
It  read  as  follows: 

"On  the  1st  of  February  we  intend  to  begin 
submarine  warfare  unrestricted.  In  spite  of 
this  it  is  our  intention  to  endeavor  to  keep  neu- 
tral the  United  States  of  America.  If  this  at- 


286  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

tempt  is  not  successful,  we  propose  an  alliance 
on  the  following  basis  with  Mexico:  That  we 
shall  give  general  financial  support,  and  it  is 
understood  that  Mexico  is  to  reconquer  the 
lost  territory  in  New  Mexico,  Texas,  and  Ari- 
zona. The  details  are  left  to  you  for  settle- 
ment. You  are  instructed  to  inform  the 
President  of  Mexico  of  the  above  in  great  con- 
fidence as  soon  as  it  is  certain  that  there  will 
be  an  outbreak  of  war  with  the  United  States 
and  suggest  that  the  President  of  Mexico  on 
his  own  initiative  should  communicate  with 
Japan  suggesting  adherence  at  once  to  this 
plan :  at  the  same  time  offer  to  mediate  between 
Germany  and  Japan.  Please  call  to  the  atten- 
tion of  the  President  of  Mexico  that  the  em- 
ployment of  ruthless  submarine  warfare  now 
promises  to  compel  England  to  make  peace 
in  a  few  months." 

Patience  was  no  longer  a  virtue.  On  April 
2,  the  President  summoned  an  extra  session 
of  Congress,  and  addressed  the  Senate  as 
follows: 

"...  The  present  German  submarine  war- 
fare against  commerce  is  a  warfare  against 
Mankind.  It  is  a  war  against  all  nations. 
American  ships  have  been  sunk,  American  lives 
taken,  in  ways  which  it  has  stirred  us  very 
deeply  to  learn  of,  but  the  ships  and  people 
of  other  neutral  and  friendly  nations  have  been 


THE  FINAL  CHALLENGE  287 

sunk  and  overwhelmed  in  the  waters  in  the 
same  way.  There  has  been  no  discrimination. 
The  challenge  is  to  all  mankind.  Each  nation 
must  decide  for  itself  how  it  will  meet  it.  ... 
There  is  one  choice  we  cannot  make,  we  are 
incapable  of  making:  we  will  not  choose  the 
path  of  submission  and  suffer  the  most  sacred 
rights  of  our  nation  and  our  people  to  be  ig- 
nored or  violated.  The  wrongs  against  which 
we  now  array  ourselves  are  no  common  wrongs; 
they  cut  to  the  very  roots  of  human  life. 

"With  a  profound  sense  of  the  solemn  and 
even  tragical  character  of  the  step  I  am  taking 
and  of  the  grave  responsibilities  which  it  in- 
volves, but  in  unhesitating  obedience  to  what 
I  deem  my  constitutional  duty,  I  advise  that 
the  Congress  declare  the  recent  course  of  the 
Imperial  German  Government  to  be  in  fact 
nothing  less  than  war  against  the  Government 
and  people  of  the  United  States;  that  it  formally 
accept  the  status  of  belligerent  which  has  thus 
been  thrust  upon  it;  and  that  it  take  immediate 
steps  not  only  to  put  the  country  in  a  more 
thorough  state  of  defense  but  also  to  exert  all 
its  power  and  employ  all  its  resources  to  bring 
the  Government  of  the  German  Empire  to 
terms  and  end  the  war.  ...  It  will  involve 
the  utmost  practicable  co-operation  in  counsel 
and  action  with  the  Governments  now  at  war 
with  Germany.  .  .  . 

"We  have  no  quarrel  with  the  German 
people.  We  have  no  feeling  toward  them  but 
one  of  sympathy  and  friendship.  It  was  not 


£88  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

upon  their  impulse  that  their  Government 
acted  in  entering  this  war.  It  was  not  with 
their  previous  knowledge  or  approval.  It  was 
a  war  determined  upon  as  wars  used  to  be  de- 
termined upon  in  the  old  unhappy  days  when 
peoples  were  nowhere  consulted  by  their  rulers, 
and  wars  were  provoked  and  waged  in  the  in- 
terest of  dynasties  or  of  little  groups  of  am- 
bitious men  who  were  accustomed  to  use  their 
fellow  men  as  pawns  and  tools.  Self-governed 
nations  do  not  fill  their  neighbor  states  with 
spies  or  set  the  course  of  intrigue  to  bring  about 
some  critical  posture  of  affairs  which  will  give 
them  an  opportunity  to  strike  and  make  con- 
quest. Such  designs  can  be  successfully  worked 
out  only  under  cover  and  where  no  one  has 
the  right  to  ask  questions.  Cunningly  con- 
trived plans  of  deception  or  aggression,  carried, 
it  may  be,  from  generation  to  generation,  can 
be  worked  out  and  kept  from  the  light  only 
within  the  privacy  of  courts  or  behind  the  care- 
fully guarded  confidences  of  a  narrow  and 
privileged  class.  They  are  happily  impossible 
where  public  opinion  commands  and  insists 
upon  full  information  concerning  all  the  na- 
tion's affairs. 

"A  steadfast  concert  for  peace  can  never 
be  maintained  except  by  a  partnership  of  demo- 
cratic nations.  No  autocratic  Government 
could  be  trusted  to  keep  faith  within  it  or  to 
observe  its  covenants.  It  must  be  a  league 
of  honor,  a  partnership  of  opinion.  Intrigue 
would  eat  its  vitals  away;  the  plottings  of  inner 


THE  FINAL  CHALLENGE  289 

circles  who  could  plan  what  they  would  and 
render  account  to  no  one  would  be  a  corruption 
seated  at  its  very  heart.  Only  free  peoples 
can  hold  their  purpose  and  their  honor  steady  to 
a  common  end  and  prefer  the  interests  of  man- 
kind to  any  narrow  interest  of  their  own.  .  .  . 
*  ...  The  world  must  be  made  safe  for 
democracy.  Its  peace  must  be  planted  upon 
the  tested  foundations  of  political  liberty.  We 
have  no  selfish  ends  to  serve.  We  desire  no 
conquest,  no  dominion.  We  seek  no  indemni- 
ties for  ourselves,  no  material  compensation 
for  the  sacrifices  we  shall  freely  make.  We  are 
but  one  of  the  champions  of  the  rights  of  man- 
kind. We  shall  be  satisfied  when  those  rights 
have  been  made  as  secure  as  the  faith  and  the 
freedom  of  nations  can  make  them. 


The  reasons  given  by  the  President  set  forth 
so  calmly  and  judicially  the  main  points  then 
immediately  at  issue  that  it  is  hardly  neces- 
sary to  discuss  them  further.  He  was  right  in 
asserting  that  the  war  had  been  brought  about 
without  the  previous  knowledge  of  the  Ger- 
man people.  He  was  still,  however,  too 
charitable  in  believing  that  it  was  brought 
about  without  the  tacit  approval  of  at  least 
a  large  majority. 

Four  days  later,  on  April  6,  1917,  Congress 


290  WHY  WE  WENT  TO  WAR 

decreed  that  "the  state  of  war  between  the 
United  States  and  the  Imperial  German  Gov- 
ernment which  has  thus  been  thrust  upon  the 
United  States  is  hereby  formally  declared." 

The  historical  documents  make  plain  how 
slowly,  how  deliberately,  how  unwillingly  we 
were  pushed  into  war  and  for  what  reasons. 
Principles  were  involved  and  they  were,  to  be 
sure,  the  highest  principles  known  to  free  men. 
But  in  the  face  of  the  record  it  is  a  mistake  for 
any  one  to  believe  that  we  went  into  this  war 
to  fight  any  other  nation's  battles.  If  ever 
we  were  threatened  in  our  own  existence  it 
was  in  the  years  1914-1917.  No  cause  was  ever 
more  truly  or  directly  our  own,  or  involved 
more  completely  the  fundamental  basis  of  our 
government  than  the  cause  in  which  we  are 
now  engaged.  If  for  the  Germans,  with  their 
philosophy  of  aggression,  it  was  a  question  of 
"world  power  or  downfall,"  for  us,  with  our 
traditions  of  independence,  it  was  a  case  of  vic- 
tory or  annihilation  as  a  free  people. 

What  tolerance  and  a  love  of  peace  could 
do  to  prevent  this  calamity  had  been  done. 
So  long  as  we  had  the  poor  security  of  "a  scrap 


THE  FINAL  CHALLENGE  291 

of  paper"  between  ourselves  and  Germany  we 
treated  her  as  a  friend.  Never  until  our  entry 
into  the  war  did  our  government  in  a  single 
instance  deviate  from  the  course  of  strict  neu- 
trality as  interpreted  by  intelligent,  conscientious 
and  impartial  judges.  We  had  closed  our  eyes 
to  Germany's  deliberate  violation  of  treaties, 
to  her  brutal  and  inhuman  disregard  of  all  the 
laws  of  war  on  land.  We  had  refrained  from 
protesting  her  offenses  against  The  Hague  Con- 
ventions which  we  ourselves  had  signed  with 
her;  we  had  overlooked  her  attacks  on  our 
rights  on  the  seas,  and  accepted  settlements 
and  a  promise  for  the  deaths  of  over  two  hun- 
dred of  our  citizens.  Our  President  worked 
loyally  for  a  peace  of  principle  at  a  tune  when 
Germany  proclaimed  it  was  her  desire  to  make 
peace,  and  yet  even  while  she  said  it,  she  was 
conspiring  against  us  in  secret,  until  for  the 
sake  of  our  existence  and  our  honor  we  replied 
at  last  and  declared  upon  her  an  honest  war 
in  the  open. 


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